WILBUR  J.  cham: 


iiiiiii 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

0¥  CALIFORNIA 

LOS  ANGELES 

IN  MEMORY  OF 

CARROLL  ALCOTT 

PRESENTED  BY 

CARROLL  ALCOTT  MEMORIAL 
LIBRARY  FUND  COMMITTEE 


L 


ORDERED  TO  CHINA 


ORDERED  TO  CHINA 

LETTERS  OF 
WILBUR  J.    CHAMBERLIN 


WRITTEN  FROM  CHINA  WHILE  UNDER  COMMISSION  FROM 
THE  NEW  YORK  SUN  DURING  THE  BOXER  UPRISING 
OF  1900  AND  THE  INTERNATIONAL  COMPLI- 
CATIONS WHICH  FOLLOWED 


NEW  YORK 

FREDERICK   A.  STOKES   COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 


Copyright,  1903 
By  FREDERICK  A.  STOKES  COMPANY 


All  rights  reserved 


Publisbed  in  September,  1903 


C3S6  ^  ^ 

To 

the  vast  army  of  men  unnamed  who  serve  their, 

country  with  pen  and  brain 
no  less  truly  and  with  no  smaller  share  of  heroism 
than  they  who  bear  the  country's  colors  into  battle, 
and 
especially  to  the  memory  of  three  brothers  wha 
early  spent  themselves,  and  who, 
in  great  crises,  laid  down  their  lives 
in  loyalty  to  duty, 
this  volume  is  dedicated  in  token  of^ 
deepest  appreciation. 


1520189 


EDITOR'S  NOTE 

In  preparing  for  publication  the  letters  which  form  the 
contents  of  this  book  there  has  been  no  attempt  to  polish 
or  to  make  more  readable  the  hastily  written  letters,  in- 
tended only  for  the  entertainment  of  an  indulgent  family 
and  intimate  friends.  From  the  public,  therefore,  similar 
indulgence  is  asked,  since  to  many  the  frankness  and 
simplicity  of  the  letters  will  constitute  their  greatest 
charm.  With  few  exceptions  they  are  addressed  to  the 
author's  wife,  and  the  superscription,  also  the  most  affec- 
tionate and  characteristic  messages  to  family  and  friends 
with  which  the  letters  uniformly  close,  are  left  to  the 
imagination  of  the  reader.  The  letters  cover  a  period 
of  just  one  year  in  the  writer's  life. 

The  object  in  publishing  the  material  has  been,  not  to 
call  attention  to  an  individual  as  such,  but  to  pay  a  well- 
deserved  tribute  to  his  profession.  If  in  any  small  degree 
the  self-portrayal  of  keen,  honest,  earnest,  affectionate 
character  shall  lead  to  a  greater  appreciation  of  the  men 
who  travel  far  and  wide,  around  the  world  if  need  be,  at 
the  call  of  duty,  equally  alert  and  ready,  whether  to  view 
some  splendid  pageant  or  to  face  danger  and  sudden 
death,  the  printing  of  these  simple  letters  will  be  justified. 

G.  L.  C. 


INTRODUCTORY     NOTE 

It  is  with  a  degree  of  emotion  which  might  not  be  quite 
understood  by  others,  that  I  undertake  the  loving  duty 
of  writing  a  few  words  of  introduction  to  this  most  inter- 
esting book. 

It  was  my  privilege  to  know  Wilbur  J.  Chamberlin,  the 
author,  in  all  his  walks  for  many  years.  The  familiar 
days  and  nights  spent  with  him  on  many  a  newspaper 
field  in  the  United  States  demonstrated  his  courageous, 
tender,  faithful,  and  truthful  soul.  Only  those  thus  asso- 
ciated with  him  could  estimate  his  marvelous  ability,  or 
speak  of  the  esteem  and  fondness  in  which  he  was  held 
by  newspaper  men,  statesmen,  politicians,  and  all  sorts 
and  conditions  of  public  men.  His  career  reflected  credit 
on  his  colleagues,  whether  on  the  Nczv  York  Sun  or  on 
other  newspapers. 

This  book  is  made  up  of  Mr.  Chamberlain's  letters  to 
his  wife  and  sister  while  at  Peking  and  other  cities  in 
China  as  the  correspondent  of  the  Nczu  York  Sim.  They 
breathe  a  humor  distinctly  his  own;  they  attest  uncon- 
sciously his  probity  of  purpose;  and  they  give  a  faithful 
and  accurate  insight  into  the  everyday  life  and  customs 
of  the  people  with  whom  he  dwelt  in  the  Chinese  Empire 
in  the  troublesome  times  which  followed  the  Boxer  insur- 
rections. 

The  qualities  which  make  this  book  valuable  are 
summed  up  in  the  editorial  of  the  Nczv  York  Sun  of  Fri- 
day, August  i6,  1901,  which  said: 

"  Wilbur  J.  Chamberlin,  who  died  on  Wednesday  at 
Carlsbad,  was  one  of  the  best  reporters  that  ever  served 
this  newspaper  and  its  readers. 

"  His  honesty  of  purpose,  modest  fidelity,  clearness  of 
vision,  and  power  of  graphic  and  accurate  narrative  were 
manifest  in  small  things  and  in  great;  and  the  course  of 
his  duty  in  the  last  years  of  his  life  brought  him  into  the 

yii 


viii  INTRODUCTORY    NOTE 

presence  of  some  of  the  most  memorable  happenings  of 
the  world's  recent  history. 

"  Such  men  are  the  real  historians.  There  is  no  higher 
journalistic  function  than  that  which  Mr.  Chamberlin 
performed  for  fourteen  years  on  the  Sim  with  entire 
loyalty  to  his  paper  and  to  his  own  professional  and  per- 
sonal honor." 

Edward  G.  Riggs. 


ORDERED  TO  CHINA 


Sunday^  August  5,  1900, 

It  is  Sunday  morning  now,  about  10  o'clock,  and  I'm 
speeding  on  toward  Chicago.  The  railroad  runs  along- 
side of  Lake  Erie,  and  I  have  been  looking  at  the  water 
for  an  hour,  thinking.  We  got  into  Cleveland  this  morn- 
ing at  8  o'clock.  I  had  been  up  for  two  hours.  I  had  an 
upper  berth,  and  didn't  sleep  very  well  last  night.  We 
took  on  a  dining-car  at  Cleveland  and  I  got  the  morning 
papers  there.  I  glanced  over  the  China  news  at  break- 
fast, and  I  can  tell  you  I  wasn't  at  all  happy  at  seeing  it 
so  favorable.  It  is  a  paradox,  of  course,  but  the  worse  the 
news  is  now  the  more  favorable  it  is,  for  the  reason  that 
the  worse  it  is,  the  sooner  the  trouble  will  be  over. 

I  have  traveled  so  much  on  this  railroad,  by  the  way, 
that  the  people  know  me.  When  I  went  into  the  dining- 
car  this  morning,  the  conductor  greeted  me  with  a  "  Hello ! 
Back  again  ?  Where  now  ?  "  I  told  him  I  wasn't  going 
far  this  time — only  to  China — and  he  came  very  near  fall- 
ing through  the  floor.  Then  he  said  he  was  going  to  have 
me  leave  with  a  good  impression  of  him,  anyway,  and  he 
sent  the  best  waiter  to  me  and  gave  me  the  finest  meal  that 
the  car  could  put  up.  I  had  musk  melon  first,  then  some 
broiled  salt  mackerel ;  after  that,  broiled  chops,  poached 
eggs  on  anchovy  toast,  pop-overs  and  corn-meal  muffins, 
creamed  potatoes,  and  coffee.  Pretty  fair  for  a  dining- 
car,  wasn't  it?  I'll  have  lunch  on  the  same  car  at  I 
o'clock.     Will  be  somewhere  near  Elkhart,  Indiana,  then. 

I  wonder  how  Billy  is  getting  on,  and  if  he  has  begun  to 
sing  yet.  I  hope  he  has,  and  I  hope  that  from  now  on  he 
.will  do  his  best  to  cheer  up  the  best  little  woman  in  the 
^vorld. 

We  are  running  into  that  hot  wave  out  here.     It  was 


2  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

cool  and  nice  last  night,  but  this  morning  it  began  to  get 
hot  as  soon  as  we  left  Cleveland,  and  it's  getting  unen- 
durable now.  I  guess  I'll  have  a  broiling  trip  through 
the  West.  I  hope  I'm  all  right  for  a  lower  berth  from 
Chicago  on,  for  I  dread  uppers  in  hot  weather. 

I  expect  to  get  into  Omaha,  Nebraska,  to-morrow  morn- 
ing, and  my  next  letter  will  be  posted  from  there,  probably. 
You  won't  get  it  until  two  days  after  you  get  this,  though. 
You  see,  I'm  traveling  in  one  direction,  and  the  letter  has 
to  travel  back  over  the  same  road. 

Good-bye;  stay  outdoors  as  much  as  possible.  Don't 
worry,  and  don't  let  the  children  worry  you.  Tell  them 
papa  hopes  that  this  time  when  he  gets  back  home  he 
will  not  have  to  do  any  scolding  at  all. 

Monday  Morning. 

You  will  notice  that  I  have  changed  my  paper  and  hence 
my  train.  I  got  to  Chicago  yesterday  afternoon  at  4.30 
o'clock,  on  time  to  the  minute,  and  two  hours  later  I  started 
out  in  this  train.  I  can  tell  you  I  wasn't  sorry  to  leave 
Chicago,  either.  The  thermometer  there  stood  at  102, 
and  it  was  one  of  the  hottest  days  of  the  year.  It  was 
broiling. 

One  of  my  fellow  passengers  on  the  train  from  New 
York  was  a  tall,  thin  young  fellow  whose  face  was  familiar 
to  me,  but  I  could  not  place  him.  We  watched  each  other 
all  the  way  out  to  Chicago.  I  noticed  that  he  had  a  sword 
with  the  rest  of  his  baggage,  and  made  up  my  mind  he 
must  be  an  army  officer.  So  when  we  got  to  Chicago  I 
said  to  him,  "  Are  not  you  one  of  General  James  H.  Wil- 
son's stafif?" 

"  At  your  service,  sir,"  he  said. 

He  turned  out  to  be  Major  Ives,  General  Wilson's  chief 
surgeon  and  an  old  Santiago  and  Porto  Rico  friend  of 
mine.  He  remembered  me  as  soon  as  I  spoke.  I  had  had 
him  on  the  boat  in  Cuba  once  or  twice.  He  had  orders 
for  China  and  had  missed  the  boat  General  Wilson  took. 
He  was  mighty  glad  to  see  me  and  I  was  to  see  him,  too, 
for  we  were  both  lonesome.  He  had  left  his  wife  and 
four  children,  and  that  made  a  bond  between  us.  We  sat 
up  till  midnight,  talking  over  old  times. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  3 

Well,  the  train  is  coming  into  Omaha  now,  and  I  must 
close  this  letter  if  I  want  to  get  it  posted  here.  We  have 
been  running  through  Illinois  and  Iowa  all  night  and  now 
we  are  just  on  the  border  of  Nebraska.  The  weather  has 
cooled  off  remarkably  and  it  is  almost  comfortable.  Don't 
forget  my  numerous  injunctions.  Don't  worry.  Keep 
out  of  doors  all  you  can  and  never  fail  to  excuse  my  writ- 
ing in  these  blooming  trains.  They  are  worse  in  the 
West  than  they  are  in  the  East,  and  if  they  keep  get- 
ting worse  you  will  have  nothing  but  hen-scratches 
from  me. 

Palace  Hotel,  San  Francisco,  Cal., 

Thursday  Morning,  August  9,  1900. 

San  Francisco  at  last.  I  thought  I  was  never  going 
to  get  here.  The  last  two  days  over  the  Rocky  and  the 
Sierra  Nevada  Mountains  were  almost  endless.  I  told 
you  in  my  letter  Tuesday  that  if  the  travel  got  any 
rougher  you'd  get  nothing  but  chicken-scratches  from  me. 
Well,  chicken-scratching  time  came  Wednesday,  and  I 
simply  could  not  write  with  all  the  jolting  and  shaking  up 
there  was.  The  train  never  stopped  long  enough  for 
me  to  write  more  than  a  line,  so  I  gave  up  the  undertak- 
ing, trusting  that  under  the  circumstances  you  would 
forgive  me. 

I  told  you,  I  think,  in  Tuesday's  letter  that  it  was  getting 
cold.  Well,  about  an  hour  after  I  wrote  that,  we  ran 
into  a  beautiful  snowstorm.  How  is  that  for  August 
in  the  Rockies  ?  It  didn't  last  long,  and  it  was  followed 
by  a  ride  through  a  country  that,  once  seen,  is  not  to  be 
forgotten.  In  the  afternoon  we  passed  Salt  Lake.  We 
must  have  run  along  the  shores  of  it  for  at  least  a  hundred 
miles,  and  all  the  time  we  were  climbing  the  mountains 
and  getting  higher  and  higher  above  the  water.  Follow- 
ing that  came  the  Great  Salt  Desert.  You  haven't  the  re- 
motest idea  what  that  is,  and  you  could  not  have  unless 
you  saw  it  with  your  own  eyes — forty  miles  of  absolutely 
flat  country,  the  ground  dazzlingly  white  or  dirty  brown 
by  turns.  There  was  not  a  living  thing  in  sight — not  a 
bird,  not  a  blade  of  grass — just  barrenness.  In  the  dis- 
tance, surrounding  it,  were  hills  on  which  there  was  not  a 


4  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

tree.  When  we  got  well  into  the  desert  the  dust  began 
flying — the  most  penetrating  dust  you  can  imagine.  The 
cars  had  double  windows  and  they  were  closed  tight,  but 
the  dust  was  driven  in  just  the  same,  and  the  interior  of 
the  cars  was  so  thick  with  it  that  we  almost  choked.  This 
kept  up  all  night.  I  went  to  bed  in  dust,  and  in  the  morn- 
ing I  had  to  dig  myself  out.  That's  no  joke,  either.  You 
actually  could  have  shoveled  it  off  the  bedclothes.  It 
was  about  nine  in  the  morning  when  we  got  out  of  the 
dust  belt,  and  we  began  to  ascend  the  next  range  of 
mountains,  which  are  snow-capped. 

I  was  severely  rebuked  about  this  time  by  one  of  the 
brakemen  on  the  train.  I  stood  on  the  platform  of  the 
dining-car,  waiting  for  a  chance  to  get  inside,  when  right 
near  us  loomed  up  a  whale  of  a  mountain.  It  looked  to 
me  to  be  a  million  feet  high,  more  or  less,  and  I  turned 
to  the  brakeman  who  was  standing  there  and  said,  "  Can 
you  tell  me  what  mountain  that  is?  "  He  looked  at  me. 
He  started  at  my  feet  and  carefully  scanned  me  to  my 
head  and  then  back  again,  the  look  of  supreme  disgust  on 
his  face  growing  more  pronounced  every  second.  Finally 
he  said,  "  Come  from  the  East,  don't  cha  ?  " 

"  Yes,"  I  said. 

"  Thought  so,"  said  he.  "  That  ain't  no  mountain ; 
that's  a  foothill." 

Of  course  all  I  could  say  was  "  Oh !  " 

After  we  got  out  of  the  dust  belt  and  began  to  climH 
the  second  range  of  mountains,  we  ran  into  the  most 
marvelous  lot  of  snowsheds  you  can  imagine — forty  miles 
of  them  !  Think  of  forty  miles  of  wooden  sheds !  It  was 
like  a  tunnel  forty  miles  long.  After  we  got  out  of  these, 
though,  the  scenery  was  magnificent.  At  one  place  we 
could  look  down  a  cafion,  5,000  feet  below,  and  above,  in 
the  distance,  we  counted  eleven  snow-capped  peaks. 

The  ride  through  California  was  a  ride  through  a  gar- 
den— miles  and  miles  of  peach,  pear,  apricot,  and  plum 
orchards ;  miles  and  miles  of  vineyards,  and  thousands 
upon  thousands  of  acres  of  wheat-fields.  Our  train  was 
two  hours  and  a  half  late  leaving  Ogden,  Utah.  We 
made  up  the  whole  of  that  coming  through  the  mountain 
deserts  of  Utah  and  Nevada,  and  got  into  San  Francisco 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  5 

practically  on  time.  There  was  no  mail  out,  so  it  was 
useless  to  write  you  last  night.  I  have  seen  nothing  of 
San  Francisco  yet,  and  so  can  tell  you  nothing  about  it, 
except  that  it  seems  to  be  a  pretty  nice  town. 

I  have  read  up  on  the  China  news,  and  to  me  the  situa- 
tion seems  to  be  about  the  same  as  it  was  before  I  left 
New  York.  It  is  not  safe  for  me  to  turn  back  here,  but 
everything  points  to  an  early  end  of  the  trouble  and  my 
turning  back  at  Yokohama.  If  there  is  no  change  in  the 
situation  I  will  be  on  my  way  there  by  the  time  you  get 
this  letter.  I  will  telegraph  you  the  day  I  sail.  From 
now  on  until  you  receive  further  instructions  you  had 
better  address  my  letters,  care  of  the  Chartered  ,Bank  of 
India,  China  and  Australia,  Yokohama,  Japan.  If  noth- 
ing happens  I  shall  sail  on  the  Peking,  of  the  Pacific  Mail 
Steamship  line,  but  you  will  know  all  this  by  telegraph 
before  you  get  this  letter,  so  it  is  useless  for  me  to  tell  you 
here. 

S.  S.  City  of  Peking,  Monday,  August  13,  1900. 
I  promised  you  in  my  letter  yesterday  that  I  would  tell 
you  something  about  my  fellow  passengers  in  this  packet 
that  is  carrying  me  to  the  Far  East  by  going  west.  There 
is  not  a  great  deal  to  tell  about  them.  We  have  about 
seventy  in  the  first  cabin,  of  whom  about  seven  or  eight 
are  ladies.  There  is  a  Mr.  A.  and  his  wife;  Mr.  A.,  I 
learned  yesterday,  is  a  friend  of  my  friend  Mr.  Eddy, 
whose  letter  to  the  Flint,  Eddy  &  American  Trading  Co., 
in  Yokohama,  I  showed  to  you.  A.  is  connected  with 
one  of  these  concerns  and  is  making  his  semi-annual  trip 
to  Japan  and  China.  He  is  taking  his  wife  along  for  the 
first  time,  though  they  have  been  married  a  long  time. 
They  also  have  their  daughter,  a  young  girl,  with  them. 
Mrs.  A.  and  the  girl  are  going  to  stay  in  Japan,  while  he 
goes  on  to  China  and  does  the  business  that  he  has  to 
do.  Another  passenger  is  Lieutenant  H.,  of  the  navy ;  he 
has  orders  to  go  to  Hong  Kong  to  join  a  ship,  but  he 
doesn't  know  which  ship.  He  was  with  Dewey  at 
Manila,  and  he  knows  D.  of  The  Sun,  whom  I  am  going 
to  send  home.  The  Lieutenant  has  a  bulldog  with  him 
for  a  mascot. 


6  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

Other  passengers  are  sixteen  contract  doctors,  with 
orders  to  the  Philippines  or  China.  You  know  that  in 
our  army  we  were  short  of  regular  doctors,  and  the  govern- 
ment offered  to  employ  a  certain  number  and  give  them 
the  rank  of  Lieutenant;  all  so  employed  are  called  con- 
tract doctors.  They  get  $1,500  a  year.  The  sixteen 
are  of  the  lot ;  they  are  most  of  them  pretty  nice 
fellows ;  but.  Great  Scott !  I'd  hate  to  be  hurt  and  have 
one  of  them  doctor  me ;  I  think  I'd  feel  better  if  I 
doctored  myself.  Besides  these  doctors,  there  are  two 
others.  Dr.  S.  and  Dr.  McW.  from  New  York.  They 
are  both  of  them  hospital  men,  and  they  are  going  to 
Hong  Kong  for  service  on  the  hospital  ship  Maine.  The 
Maine  is  the  hospital  ship  that  the  American  women  fitted 
out  for  service  in  the  South  African  war.  It  has  now 
been  sent  to  China,  and  they  will  join  it  there.  They  are 
fine  young  fellows,  and  we  have  become  quite  friendly; 
they  insist  that  if  I  should  ever  get  out  of  sorts  in  any 
way,  I  must  come  straight  to  the  Maine  to  brace  up.  I 
don't  suppose  I  ever  shall  see  the  Maine.  Still  it  might 
come  in  handy  some  day,  and  they  are  two  good  traveling 
companions  for  the  present  at  any  rate. 

Two  other  passengers  are  a  French  Count  and  his  wife, 
who  has  bleached  blond  hair,  and  who  insists  upon  sing- 
ing, though  she  can  sing  no  better  than  I  can  myself. 
She  also  plays  the  piano,  but  she  knows  how  to  do  that, 
so  the  passengers  have  forgiven  her.  The  Count  is  an 
image  of  the  pictured  Mephistopheles.  He  is  tall  and 
thin,  with  a  pointed  beard  that  sticks  straight  out  like  that 
of  Carl  Schurz.  He  seems  to  be  all  right,  but  he  can't 
talk  English,  so  I  haven't  carried  on  any  extended  con- 
versation with  him  yet.  These  are  about  the  only  interest- 
ing passengers  in  the  cabin,  and  I  don't  suppose  that  you 
will  be  interested  in  reading  about  them,  but  on  ship- 
board things  are  monotonous  and  it  is  hard  to  find  in- 
teresting things  to  write  about.  Oh !  there  is  another 
passenger ;  his  name  is  S.,  and  he  is  a  doctor,  and  he  hasn't 
left  his  cabin  since  the  ship  sailed  from  the  dock  at  San 
Francisco.  He  is  homesick  so  badly  that  he  is  down  in 
bed.  How  is  that  for  a  doctor — sick  in  bed  with  home- 
sickness?   The  Peking  is  sailing  along  at  the  rate  of 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  7 

thirteen  miles  an  hour.     She  is  not  an  Atlantic  liner  by 
any  means,  but  she  is  good  and  comfortable. 

Now,  I'll  bid  you  good-by  for  another  day,  and  will  go 
up  on  deck.  It's  getting  very  much  warmer  than  it  was, 
and  by  to-morrow  we  expect  to  have  typical  tropical 
weather.  Quite  a  change  from  a  snowstorm  in  the 
Rockies ! 

S.  S.  City  of  Peking,  Wednesday,  August  15,  1900. 

Here  is  another  day  of  the  finest  weather  that  the 
weather  man  can  shake  out  of  the  box,  and  though  there 
is  nothing  in  sight  but  water,  we  are  about  four  hundred 
miles  nearer  land  than  we  were  yesterday.  Yesterday 
afternoon  we  passed  the  first  ship  that  we  had  seen  since 
leaving  San  Francisco.  It  was  the  Hong  Kong,  of  the 
Japanese  line.  It  was  about  3  o'clock  when  it  was 
sighted,  and  the  passengers  all  crowded  on  the  starboard 
rail  and  watched  her  until  she  had  passed  us  and  was  out 
of  sight,  in  the  direction  of  San  Francisco.  She  was  the 
ship  we  expected  to  meet  in  the  harbor  of  Honolulu,  and 
we  expected  to  send  back  our  mail  on  her,  but  we  mis- 
calculated, and  it  may  be  that  now  there  will  be  a  delay 
of  a  day  or  two  in  Hawaii  before  a  ship  comes  along  to  get 
the  mail. 

We  have  had  one  death  on  board  since  we  started.  A 
Chinamen  in  the  steerage,  died  yesterday  morning,  of  con- 
sumption. He  was  sick  when  he  came  aboard,  and  it  was 
doubtful  then  if  he  could  live  the  trip  out.  He  was  found 
in  his  berth  by  other  Chinamen,  and  they  all  came 
running  out  on  deck.  Then  I  learned  something  about 
Chinamen  that  I  did  not  know  before ;  it  seems  that  they 
have  a  horror  of  the  dead,  and  no  good  Chinaman  will 
have  anything  to  do  with  a  dead  body ;  he  will  not  touch  it. 
In  China  all  the  burying  is  done  by  a  certain  set  of  men 
who  are  ostracized.  Other  Chinamen  will  have  nothing 
to  do  with  them ;  everything  connected  with  the  dead  is 
evil.  Yesterday  morning,  as  I  said,  the  other  Chinamen 
came  running  up  on  deck ;  not  one  of  them  could  be  in- 
duced to  go  below  again.  The  doctor  of  the  ship  went 
down  and  found  that  the  man  was  dead,  and  embalmed 
the  body. 


8  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

It  seems  that  another  superstition  of  the  Chinamen  is 
that  no  Chinaman  that  is  buried  at  sea  can  ever  reach  the 
"  happy  hunting  ground,"  so  that  they  have  a  horror  of 
being  buried  at  sea.  There  is,  in  San  Francisco,  an  or- 
ganization known  as  the  Chinese  Six  Companies.  In  the 
district  of  Canton,  China,  from  which  nearly  all  the 
Chinese  who  get  to  the  United  States  come,  there  are  six 
dififerent  dialects.  The  Six  Companions  embraces  the  six 
dialects,  and  when  a  Chinaman  comes  to  America,  he  pays 
a  certain  amount  to  this  organization  and  the  Six  Com- 
panies promises  to  look  out  for  him.  One  of  the  ways  it 
looks  out  for  him  is  to  see  that  his  body  is  not  buried  at 
sea.  The  Six  Companies  makes  a  contract  with  the 
various  steamship  companies  to  pay  them  $25.00  for  the 
body  of  any  Chinaman  who  dies  at  sea.  Of  this,  the 
doctor  who  embalms  the  body  gets  half,  $12.50,  for  his 
work,  and  the  company  gets  $12.50. 

Everybody  in  the  Peking  thought  that  there  would  be  a 
burial  at  sea  when  they  heard  that  one  of  the  steerage 
passengers  had  died,  but  they  slipped  up  on  it.  After 
the  doctor  had  finished  his  work  the  body  was  put  in  a 
coffin  and  was  dragged  up  on  deck,  and  then  it  was  lifted 
up  into  one  of  the  life  boats  over  the  deck,  where  it  will 
stay  until  the  ship  gets  to  Hong  Kong;  there,  it  will  be 
turned  over  to  the  men  of  the  Six  Companies  to  be  buried. 
If  the  body  had  been  that  of  a  man  of  any  other  nation- 
ality, it  would  have  been  buried  at  sea.  So  you  see  that 
the  Chinese  are  not  so  devoid  of  feeling  as  they  are 
generally  supposed  to  be,  though  the  feeling  is  wholly 
superstition  in  this  case. 

Well,  I  guess  that's  all  you  care  to  know  about  dead 
Chinamen.  I  think  the  live  men  deserve  some  mention. 
They  are  certainly  a  peculiar  lot ;  I  have  a  heap  more 
respect  for  them  than  I  ever  had  before.  As  servants 
they  are  willing  and  obliging.  There  are  some  splendid 
specimens  of  physical  manhood  among  the  crew  of  this 
boat ;  two  or  three  of  them  are  a  great  deal  bigger  than 
the  average  big  white  man,  broad-shouldered,  muscular, 
and  seemingly  as  strong  as  oxen ;  they  are  good  workmen 
too.  I  will  tell  you  more  about  them  when  I  have  a 
chance  to  study  them  more,  to-morrow  maybe;  there  is 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  9 

no  more  time  to-day,  for  they  are  around  my  ears  now, 
insisting  on  getting  the  table  on  which  I  am  writing  so 
that  they  can  prepare  it  for  lunch. 

S.  S.  City  of  Peking,  Thursday,  August  i6,  1900. 

I  discovered  last  night  that  this  ship  I'm  floating  west- 
ward on  is  a  gilded  palace  of  vice.  Perhaps  we  might 
leave  out  the  gilded  palace,  for  there  isn't  much  gilt  about 
the  old  tub,  but  the  vice  is  here  just  the  same.  I  was  in 
the  storekeeper's  room  about  9  o'clock,  and  he  asked 
me  if  I  wanted  to  go  up  into  the  joint.  I  didn't  know 
what  that  meant,  and  so  I  said  I  did.  You  know  there 
is  only  one  way  to  find  things  out  in  this  world,  and  that 
is  to  see  them.  He  led  the  way  up,  forward,  to  the  part 
of  the  ship  occupied  by  the  steerage  passengers,  and  then 
down  two  chutes  to  the  hold  of  the  ship,  and  then  back 
to  a  little  square  room ;  a  dim  light  burned  there.  There 
was  a  long  table  on  which  were  lying  six  or  eight  China- 
men, each  with  an  opium  pipe  in  his  mouth.  They  were 
smoking  opium.  I  learned  then  that  so  common  is  the 
vice  among  the  Celestials  that  all  the  steamships  that 
travel  between  the  United  States  and  Chinese  ports  have 
to  have  an  opium  joint  aboard  of  them  to  accommodate 
the  victims  of  the  drug.  The  joint,  the  ship's  officer  told 
me,  is  always  full. 

My  visit  gave  me  an  opportunity  to  see  how  the  poor 
devils  of  Chinamen  live  on  board  of  ships,  when  they  are 
traveling  in  the  steerage.  The  part  of  the  ship  that  I 
was  in  was  given  over  entirely  to  bunks ;  the  bunks  were 
huge  iron  racks  with  strips  of  canvas  spread  across ;  the 
strips  were  laid  five  deep.  The  bottom  one  was  almost 
on  the  floor  and  the  top  one  was  almost  touching  the  deck 
above.  There  was  just  room  between  the  strips  for  a 
Chinaman  to  crawl  in  and  lie  perfectly  flat.  There  the 
poor  fellows  were  stacked  up  like  a  load  of  cordwood. 
I  found  that  there  were  two  or  three  hundred  of  them. 
Many  of  them  were  consumptives  who  were  returning 
home  to  die.  Stacked  up  as  they  all  were,  breathing  the 
foul  air  over  and  over  again,  of  course  it  would  be  a  won- 
der if  the  germs  of  the  disease  did  not  spread,  and  if  many 
who  were  healthy  at  the  start  of  the  voyage  did  not  end 


10  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

with  the  disease  firmly  imbedded  in  their  systems.  I  can 
tell  you  that  ten  thousand  dollars  would  not  tempt  me  to 
make  a  trip  under  the  conditions  that  these  men  travel 
under.     It's  a  wonder  that  they  live  at  all. 

Another  interesting  sight  that  I  watched  once  or  twice 
to-day  was  the  feeding  of  these  men.  The  steamship  com- 
pany charges  them  $50  fare  and  gives  them  the  necessaries 
of  life,  such  as  rice  and  a  little  meat.  They  furnish  the 
luxuries  themselves.  The  regular  fare  is  $325 ;  so  you 
see  the  saving  is  very  great.  The  luxuries  that  the 
"  Celestials "  get  consist  of  fresh  vegetables,  canned 
mushrooms,  and  some  other  canned  stufif.  The  ship's 
cook  cooks  for  them.  Tables  are  provided  for  them  to 
eat  from,  but  they  scorn  to  use  them.  They  eat  in  groups 
of  a  dozen  or  less ;  the  food  is  all  in  pans  which  are  set  in 
the  middle  of  the  groups.  Each  Chinaman  has  a  little 
round  bowl  and  two  chopsticks.  He  dips  his  bowl  into 
the  rice  and  stacks  it  up  full ;  he  packs  it  tight  with  his 
chopsticks,  and  then  he  is  ready  to  begin,  which  he  does 
much  after  the  fashion  of  a  hog.  He  bows  his  head  and 
holds  the  rice  bowl  to  his  mouth ;  with  the  chopsticks  he 
shoves  the  rice  into  his  mouth  until  the  mouth  is  crowded 
so  full  that  he  can  hardly  close  it ;  not  until  then  is  the 
rice  bowl  lowered.  As  he  munches  the  rice  as  best  he 
can,  he  digs  into  the  general  pan  of  meat  and  potatoes, 
or  whatever  the  other  food  may  be.  It  is  always  wet, 
stew-like.  He  manipulates  the  chopsticks  with  very  great 
skill.  He  picks  up  pieces  of  meat,  or  onion,  or  potatoes, 
or  the  like,  with  as  much  ease  as  if  he  were  using  a  fork. 
He  seldom  drops  anything  that  he  gets  between  the 
sticks,  and  at  the  same  time  he  seems  to  make  no  effort 
at  all  to  hold  the  sticks  together.  Long  practice  has 
made  him  perfect. 

Well,  as  I  said,  he  dives  into  the  general  pans,  one  after 
the  other,  and  conveys  the  stuff  to  his  already  crowded 
mouth.  Now,  it  wouldn't  be  so  bad  if  "he"  was  only  one, 
but  "  he  "  numbers  about  twelve  around  a  pan,  and  the 
whole  twelve  "  he's  "  dip  their  twenty-four  chop-sticks 
into  the  pans  at  one  time.  It's  all  interesting  enough  to 
look  at  for  a  few  minutes,  and  then  it  kind  of  palls  on  you. 
Well,  I  guess  you  have  read  enough  about  it,  don't  you 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  11 

think  so?  I  have  just  told  it  to  you  because  it  interested 
me  for  a  few  minutes,  and  I  thought  it  might  you ;  too 
much  description,  though,  I  guess  would  pall  on  you  as 
too  much  of  the  scene  did  on  me.  When  I  entered  the 
smoking  room  after  watching  the  feeding  process,  some- 
one asked  me  what  was  going  on  outside,  and  I  told  him 
they  were  feeding  the  hogs.  When  I  said  to  you  in  the 
letter  yesterday  that  I  had  a  great  deal  more  respect  for 
the  Chinese  than  I  had  when  I  started,  I  meant  it,  but 
really  I  would  like  to  qualify  the  remark  a  little  bit. 

By  the  way,  you  recall  the  Count  and  Countess  that  I 
told  you  about,  she  of  the  red  hair  and  the  gambling 
proclivities.  Well,  she  struck  a  stump  last  night.  She 
played  poker  all  day  yesterday  and  all  last  night  until  two 
o'clock  this  morning.  When  she  quit,  I  understand,  she 
was  in  the  neighborhood  of  $300  out.  To-day  she 
hasn't  been  near  the  smoking  room,  nor  has  the  Count; 
so  I  guess  that  they  have  had  enough.  When  the  game 
was  over  she  said  sweetly,  "  O — oh,  id  was  such  a  leetle 
matter,  such  a  leetle  matter,  eet  doce  not  matter,"  while 
the  Count  shrugged  his  shoulders  and  held  his  hands  on 
a  line  with  his  chin,  palms  upward. 

When  I  write  you  to-morrow  I  think  we  will  be  in 
sight  of  the  mountains  of  Hawaii.  We  will  not  reach 
the  island  where  Honolulu  is,  and  where  we  land,  until 
after  sundown,  and  will,  therefore,  have  to  lie  outside 
until  morning.  We  will  go  in  Saturday  morning,  and 
then  I  will  have  a  chance  to  mail  these  letters  that  I  have 
been  writing.  I  only  wish  that  I  could  have  a  bunch  like 
them  from  you. 

S.  S.  City  of  Peking,  Friday,  August  17,  1900. 

I  postponed  writing  this  letter  until  to-night,  because  I 
thought  I  could  tell  you  in  it  that  we  had  sighted  Hawaii, 
and  would  be  in  port  to-night,  but,  up  to  the  time  when 
the  sun  went  down,  we  had  seen  nor  hide  nor  hair  of  it, 
and  we  certainly  won't  get  in  until  morning,  for  it  is  10 
o'clock  now,  and  we  haven't  even  seen  the  lighthouse. 

The  day  has  been  in  all  ways  a  most  miserable  one.  In 
the  night  a  windstorm  started  that  kicked  up  a  big  sea, 
and  that  was  followed  by  a  regular  tropical  downpour  of 


12  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

rain.  I  have  told  you  what  the  storms  were  in  Cuba ; 
well,  they  are  the  same  here,  only  they  last  longer.  The 
rain  started  early  this  morning,  and  it  kept  right  on  until 
dark.  It  came  in  sheets,  and  most  of  the  time  it  was  so 
heavy  that  it  looked  like  a  fog.  You  couldn't  see  much 
of  anything. 

More  than  half  the  passengers  in  the  ship  are  bound 
for  Hawaii,  and,  of  course,  at  this  time  all  of  them  are  up 
on  deck,  straining  for  a  glimpse  of  the  Honolulu  light, 
which  is  on  the  island  of  Oaliu.  The  Captain  said  to- 
night that  we  would  probably  be  in  Honolulu  for  twenty- 
four  hours,  we  have  so  much  freight  for  that  port.  That 
will  give  us  an  opportunity  to  see  something  of  the  city. 
After  I  have  seen  it  I  will  tell  you  about  it.  I  guess  that 
you  have  had  enough  of  the  ship  in  this  batch  of  letters, 
and  so  I'll  not  tell  you  anything  more  about  it  now. 

S.  S.  City  of  Peking,  Monday,  August  20,  1900. 

On  the  road  again,  traveling  west.  In  my  letter  to  you 
Sunday  morning  I  said  that  the  Peking  was  to  sail  at 
noon.  That  was  the  time  she  should  have  sailed,  and  I 
cut  my  letter  short.  But  she  did  not  sail  until  nearly  12 
o'clock  last  night.  It  took  until  that  time  to  load  up  with 
coal  to  carry  her  on  to  Yokohama.  It  was  about  as  dull 
an  afternoon  on  the  ship  as  could  be  put  in,  and  so,  with 
five  other  passengers,  I  went  off  to  Waikiki,  the  seashore, 
again,  and  had  another  swim  in  the  ocean.  We  all  had 
dinner  at  the  Royal  Hawaiian  Hotel,  and  got  back  on 
bonrd  the  Peking  about  10  o'clock  in  the  evening. 

I  promised  to  give  you  the  details  of  the  trip  about 
Honolulu.  To  begin  with,  as  I  have  already  written  you, 
we  had  a  lot  of  Honolulu  people  in  the  ship,  and,  of 
course,  before  we  got  to  the  Hawaiian  Islands  we  were 
all  pretty  well  acquainted.  One  of  the  Honoluluians  that 
I  became  quite  friendly  with  was  a  young  civil  engineer 
named  C.  Another  was  a  retired  Chief  Engineer  of  the 
navy  named  D. ;  another,  a  man  named  L.,  who  stopped 
at  Honolulu,  though  he  lives  in  Manila.  C.  took  it  on 
himself  to  pilot  the  party,  which  I  joined.  Besides  those 
I  have  named,  the  partv  included  Dr.  McW.  and  Dr.  S., 
both  of  New  Yorkj  Dr.  H.,  of  Westfield,  Massachusetts, 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  13 

Dr.  W.,  of  Camden,  Maine,  and  a  doctor  from  Michigan, 
who  weighed  340  pounds,  and  whom  we  called  "  Fat." 

Well,  I  told  you  Honolulu  is  beautiful.  No  word  de- 
scribes it  better  than  that.  You  have  seen  pictures  of  the 
tropical  countries,  with  the  great  palms  and  the  hundred 
and  one  flowers  in  constant  bloom.  They  are  supposed  to 
exist  in  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico,  and  they  don't,  but  they 
do  in  Honolulu.  Palms  of  all  kinds  known  to  the  world 
are  there,  and  all  manner  of  flowers  of  brightest  hues. 
Almost  every  home  is  surrounded  by  palms  and  mag- 
nolias and  twenty-five  or  fifty  other  kinds  of  trees.  In 
place  of  the  crowding  that  is  everywhere  visible,  and  is 
everywhere  a  curse  in  the  West  Indies,  there  is  room 
and  freedom  in  Honolulu.  The  people  live  like  civilized 
human  beings,  with  a  house  for  almost  every  family,  and 
grounds  around  almost  every  house. 

Our  party  went  direct  from  the  ship  to  the  Royal 
Hawaiian  Hotel,  which  is  built  in  the  way  I  am  going  to 
build  my  house  when  I  build  one — that  is,  around  piazzas. 
The  piazzas  of  the  Royal  are  bigger  than  the  main  hotel. 
The  hotel  itself  covers  a  great  block  of  ground,  and  the 
rooms,  instead  of  being  in  the  main  building,  where  the 
office  and  dining  room  and  other  general  rooms  are, 
are  in  small  cottages.  Each  cottage  has  four  rooms,  with 
a  bath  and  a  porch  for  each,  and  each  cottage  is  sur- 
rounded by  its  own  grove  of  trees.  Four  of  our  party 
took  one  of  the  cottages  for  the  day,  and  were  as  com- 
fortable as  you  please. 

We  had  lunch  at  the  hotel,  and  then  drove  to  the  top 
of  an  extinct  volcano,  called  the  Punchbowl.  It  was  a 
beautiful  drive  over  a  splendid  road,  through  groves  of 
palm  and  banana  trees  and  past  fields  of  rice  and  patches 
of  taro,  which  in  Hawaii  takes  the  place  of  potatoes.  The 
crater  up  which  the  road  leads  is  formed  entirely  of  lava, 
once  molten,  and  now  cold  and  hard.  The  interior  of 
the  crater  is  just  a  great  hollow,  and  is  entirely  covered 
by  vegetation.  If  you  did  not  know  it,  you  would  never 
suspect  that  the  place  had  once  been  a  red-hot  volcano. 
From  the  topmost  point  of  the  crater  the  view  was  beauti- 
ful, and  we  could  sec  a  lot  of  the  other  islands  of  the 
group,  including  one  that  had  a  snow-capped  mountain. 


14  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

I  don't  know  what  its  height  is,  but  you  can  imagine  how 
high  it  must  be  to  have  snow  on  its  top  in  the  tropics. 

After  the  ride  we  all  went  to  the  beach.  The  water  here 
is  only  four  or  five  feet  deep  clear  out  a  half-mile  from  the 
shore,  and  that  makes  a  beautiful  line  of  breakers.  There 
were  hundreds  in  bathing.  Nearly  all  of  them  had  surf- 
boards, and  the  natives  were  particularly  expert  in  using 
them.  A  surf-board  is  a  flat  board  about  the  length  of  a 
man's  body,  and  to  ride  on  it  you  must  flop  down  on  your 
stomach  at  exactly  the  moment  a  wave  catches  up  with 
you.  Then,  keeping  your  feet  and  legs  going  like  a 
threshing  machine,  you  ride  ahead  of  the  wave  until  you 
lose  your  balance.  You  have  no  idea  of  the  speed  with 
which  the  wave  comes.  You  don't  begin  to  realize  it 
until  you  see  a  man  riding  a  surf-board  ahead  of  it.  The 
most  expert  of  the  natives  were  able  to  ride  a  while  on  the 
boards  on  their  stomachs,  and  then  to  climb  up  and  bal- 
ance themselves,  standing  on  the  board  and  riding  clear 
in  to  the  shore.  It  is  a  more  difficult  trick  than  walking  a 
tight  rope,  and  a  good  deal  more  interesting  to  look  at. 

Besides  the  surf-boards,  there  were  surf-boats.  These 
were  long,  curved,  with  two  arms  out  one  side,  and  a 
sort  of  rider  at  the  end  of  the  arms  to  make  a  better  bal- 
ance. Two  natives  would  take  one  passenger  away  out  in 
one  of  these  boats,  and  then  swing  the  canoe  around,  and 
have  it  caught  by  a  wave  just  as  the  surf -board  was 
caught.  Then  they'd  all  come  kiting  in  to  the  shore  at 
what  seemed  a  mile-a-minute  gait,  the  spray  dashing  up 
in  front  and  all  about  them.  It  looked  like  the  finest  kind 
of  sport,  but  I  didn't  try  it.  After  our  bath,  our  party 
had  dinner  with  C.  in  the  hotel  annex  at  the  seashore. 
Then  we  went  back  to  the  hotel  in  Honolulu. 

I  had  a  chance  then  to  go  out  and  see  the  business  part 
of  the  town.  Here,  again,  I  found  a  tremendous  differ- 
ence between  Hawaii  and  Porto  Rico  and  Cuba.  The 
stores  are  modern  stores.  One  could  buy  almost  anything 
he  wanted.  The  prices  were  very  high,  but  it  was  possible 
to  get  things,  and  that  is  what  cannot  be  done  in  the  West 
Indian  Islands.  In  the  evening  there  was  music,  and  a 
dance  at  the  hotel.  The  grounds  were  lighted  up  with 
colored  electric  lights,  and  the  show  was  a  fine  one  from 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  15 

a  spectacular  point  of  view.  After  the  music  at  the  hotel 
was  over,  we  went  out  to  see  a  Hula  dance,  but  didn't 
see  it. 

The  place  is  a  mighty  expensive  one  to  live  in.  Hack 
fares  are  tremendous.  The  saloons  all  charge  twenty- 
five  cents  a  drink,  no  matter  what  the  drink  is.  Other 
things  are  in  proportion.  There  are  only  eight  saloons 
in  the  place.  The  strongest  element  in  the  population, 
politically  speaking,  is  the  missionary  element.  Gover- 
nor Dole  used  to  be  a  missionary.  The  missionaries  are 
responsible  for  the  small  number  of  saloons  and  for  the 
general  orderliness  of  the  town.  There  are  no  gambling 
places.  The  bad  social  element  is  all  confined  to  a  local- 
ity far  from  the  main  part  of  the  city,  known  as  the 
Corral.  The  greater  part  of  the  city  population  is  made 
up  of  Chinese  and  Japanese,  but  the  Americans  are  in 
control  of  everything. 

We  are  off  now  on  a  twelve-day  voyage,  and  I  can 
assure  you  there  is  a  sameness  about  the  landscape  that 
is  mighty  tiresome.  I  only  wish  you  could  be  here 
with  me  to  enjoy  it.  I  think  we  could  both  have  a 
good  time  where  it  is  all  loneliness  for  me.  The  ship  has 
only  about  half  as  many  cabin  passengers  as  it  had, 
but  at  Honolulu  she  picked  up  about  200  men,  Chinese 
and  Japanese,  for  the  steerage.  The  thing  I  am  finding 
it  hardest  to  stand  is  the  lack  of  news.  Just  think  of  it ! 
I  haven't  heard  a  word  of  news  since  I  left  San  Francisco, 
and  that  isn't  the  worst  of  it.  I  won't  hear  a  word  until 
I  get  to  Yokohama.  China  may  be  all  smashed  to  pieces 
at  this  very  moment,  or  the  allied  forces  may  be  smashed. 
There  is  no  telling  which. 

If  this  letter  hasn't  tired  you,  I  suspect  one  of  the  others 
that  you  get  at  the  same  time  will,  so  I'll  say  good-by 
again  for  the  day. 

S.  S.  City  of  Peking,  Thursday,  August  23,  1900. 
This  is  Thursday,  and,  as  I  told  you  in  my  letter  yester- 
day, there  "ain't  going  to  be  any  to-morrow."  We'll  come 
to  Saturday  next.  I  can  tell  you  another  thing,  that  for 
a  while  to-day  it  looked  a  heap  as  if  there  wasn't  going 
to  be  any  to-morrow  for  a  fact.     We  have  had  a  mutiny 


1C>  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

on  board  the  Peking.  We  had  to  put  twenty-eight  of  the 
crew  in  irons,  and  for  a  time  it  looked  as  if  we  might  have 
to  tackle  the  whole  measly  crew  of  steerage  passengers  as 
well.  The  thing  is  not  generally  known  about  the  ship. 
The  officers  are  keeping  it  quiet  for  fear  of  alarming  the 
passengers,  particularly  the  women,  and  they've  had  their 
hands  full  with  the  Chinese,  without  being  bothered  with 
any  hysterics.  I  happened  to  be  around  while  the  affair 
was  going  on,  and  of  course  I  learned  about  it. 

It  seems  that,  ever  since  the  trouble  in  China  started, 
the  members  of  the  Chinese  crew  have  been  restless,  and 
two  or  three  times  they  have  acted  more  or  less  ugly,  talk- 
ing about  "  foreign  devils  "  and  all  that.  At  Honolulu, 
as  I  have  already  told  you,  we  took  on  several  hundred 
more  of  the  heathen.  In  this  last  batch  were  two  husky- 
looking  fellows,  full-blooded  Chinese,  who  were  bent  on 
trouble,  but  so  far  they  have  been  smart  enough  not  to 
get  caught  at  any  deviltry  themselves.  Since  they  came 
aboard,  however,  the  ugliness  in  the  crew  has  increased, 
and  early  this  morning  one  of  the  firemen  hauled  off  and 
banged  a  white  watch  officer  in  the  face.  That  settled 
the  fellow's  hash,  of  course.  He  was  overpowered,  taken 
to  the  room  of  the  First  Officer,  and  promptly  put  in  irons. 
Then  all  sorts  of  threats  were  made,  with  much  shouting 
and  howling  and  talk  of  forcibly  rescuing  the  man. 

The  officers  of  the  ship  and  the  other  white  employees, 
twenty-six  in  all,  were  expecting  trouble  at  noon,  when 
the  shifts  change.  About  ten  minutes  before  noon  they 
worked  around  quietly,  without  letting  anybody  suspect 
what  was  going  on,  with  the  idea  of  keeping  the  China- 
men separated  as  much  as  possible.  The  steward's  force 
all  got  jobs  in  the  after  end  of  the  ship,  and  three  or  four 
whites  were  mixed  with  them.  The  deck  force  were  all 
put  at  work  forward,  and  two  or  three  whites  were  there 
too.  Others  of  the  white  men  went  among  the  steerage 
passengers,  while  the  rest  of  the  whites  lounged  around 
the  engine  and  stoke  room,  where  the  trouble  was 
expected. 

At  noon,  when  it  was  time  for  a  new  shift  of  firemen 
to  go  in,  the  twenty-eight  men  in  the  shift  went  to  the 
head  of  the  companionway  and  declared  insolently  that 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  17 

they  would  not  go  to  work  unless  the  man  in  irons  was 
released.  The  biggest  man  in  the  crowd  was  the  spokes- 
man, and  he  drew  up,  evidently  prepared  to  fight.  Well, 
it  all  happened  quicker  than  I  can  tell  you.  A  white  man 
jumped  at  him  and  let  drive  a  terrific  blow.  It  caught 
that  Celestial  on  the  point  of  the  jaw,  and  he  whirled 
around  three  times  and  dropped  like  a  log.  At  the  same 
moment  the  men  who  had  pretended  to  be  lounging  about 
were  all  activity,  and  if  any  one  of  those  Chinamen  had 
made  a  hostile  move  it  would  probably  have  been  his  last. 
The  twenty-seven,  however,  declared  stolidly  that  they 
would  not  work.  Without  any  more  ado  they  were 
seized  and  the  whole  lot  put  in  irons,  and  the  order  was 
to  stop  the  ship  and  stay  stopped  until  the  mutiny  was 
quelled.  But  before  the  ship  had  stopped  the  men  gave 
in,  and  said  they  would  go  to  work.  They  were  released, 
with  the  exception  of  the  man  who  was  in  irons  at  first, 
and  who  caused  the  trouble.  He  is  still  sitting  on  the 
bridge,  his  hands  and  feet  shackled,  and  there  he'll  stay 
until  there  is  no  more  fight  left  in  him.  I  guess  the 
trouble  is  all  over  now,  and  there  is  no  more  danger; 
but  if  it  isn't,  there  will  be  more  than  one  Chinaman  up  in 
the  boat  that  I  told  you  about  in  my  last  batch  of  letters. 
There  won't  be  any  fooling  with  them. 

Well,  I  guess  that  completes  the  story  of  the  day  on 
ship-board,  and  I'll  say  good-by  until  day  after  to-mor- 
row, which  will  be  to-morrow. 

S.  S.  City  of  Peking, 
To-morrow  Morning,  August   25,  1900. 

As  I  said  to  you  yesterday,  to-day  is  to-morrow.  I'm 
a  day  ahead  of  you  now,  and  while  you  are  struggling 
through  Friday,  I'm  well  into  Saturday. 

We  haven't  had  a  peep  from  our  Chinese  friends  since 
I  wrote  you  yesterday  afternoon.  They  are  ugly,  but 
they  are  scared,  and  there  is  no  danger  that  they  will 
get  over  their  scare  before  we  land  in  Yokohama.  They 
will  all  be  discharged  when  the  ship  reaches  the  end  of 
her  journey,  Hong  Kong,  and  a  new  crew  will  be  shipped. 

I  told  you  in  other  letters  about  the  crew  of  contract 
surgeons   we  have  on  board  the  ship.     We  call   them 


18  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

"  misfits,"  here.  I  wouldn't  let  one  of  them  doctor  a 
cat.  Well,  we  have  had  a  heap  of  fun  out  of  them  since 
the  Chinese  outbreak,  and  they  have  turned  out  a  fine  lot 
of  soldier-doctors,  I  can  tell  you.  I  don't  mean  all  of 
them,  of  course,  for  there  are  two  or  three  who  are  not 
bad  fellows,  but  the  rest  of  them  are  the  worst  lot  of 
duffers  that  ever  wore  the  title  of  doctor. 

The  story  of  the  trouble  with  the  Chinese  crew  leaked 
out  in  spite  of  the  officers  of  the  ship,  and  then  the  fun 
began.  We  have  aboard  two  cannon  which  were  used 
in  the  old  days  when  the  China  Sea  was  full  of  pirates, 
who  once  in  a  while  would  attack  a  merchant  ship.  That 
was  years  ago.  The  cannon,  of  course,  have  not  been 
used  since,  except  for  saluting  purposes.  They  are  made 
of  brass,  and  they  require  a  great  deal  of  cleaning  to  keep 
them  bright  and  an  ornament  to  the  ship. 

Thursday  happened  to  be  cannon-cleaning  day,  and  the 
cannon  were  being  rubbed  up  about  the  time  the  story 
of  the  trouble  with  the  crew  leaked  out.  The  anxiety 
that  the  doctors  displayed  for  details  showed  their 
nervousness,  so  two  or  three  of  us  who  knew  all  about  it, 
and  knew,  too,  that  the  danger  was  over,  told  the  doctors, 
confidentially,  that  the  cannon  were  being  put  in  condition 
for  use  the  moment  the  outbreak  came.  We  assured 
them  that  there  was  no  telling  when  it  would  come. 
They  swallowed  it  all.  They  kept  getting  more  and  more 
nervous  as  night  approached,  and  a  number  of  them  dis- 
appeared. They  were  hunted  for  in  their  rooms,  and 
were  discovered  polishing  up  their  swords,  and  loading 
pistols  that  they  could  never  have  been  induced  to  shoot 
for  fear  they  would  hurt  themselves.  This  was  a  tip  for 
us,  and  when  these  fellows  came  on  deck  again  we  took 
them  casually  back  to  the  after  wheelhouse,  where  there 
are  two  cans  labeled  "  Gunpowder  "  and  about  thirty- 
five  rifles.  We  told  them  we  understood  that  the  rifles 
were  to  be  given  out  at  dark,  and  that  it  was  too  bad 
there  were  not  enough  to  go  around. 

I  can  tell  you  that  part  of  the  crowd  did  not  eat  much 
dinner  that  night.  We  had  arranged  to  get  four  or  five 
of  the  Chinese  cabin  boys  to  talk  Chinese  up  and  down 
the  stateroom  alleys  in  the  evening,  but  then  we  thought 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  19 

that  some  of  the  scared  ones  might  accidentally  shoot 
somebody,  so  we  gave  that  up  and  waited  for  develop- 
ments. This  morning  we  learned  that  four  or  five  of  the 
doctors  had  barricaded  their  doors  before  retiring. 
One  man  confessed  that  he  had  slept  with  his  pistol  in  his 
hand.  Two  others  told  how  they  had  their  swords  beside 
them,  and  their  pistols  under  their  pillows.  They  are 
still  convinced  that  the  ship  is  on  the  verge  of  a  more  or 
less  bloody  riot,  and  some  of  them  are  going  around  in 
full  uniform  with  swords  and  pistols,  prepared  for  the 
worst.  It  is,  I  suppose,  mean  to  fool  men  this  way,  but 
when  you  consider  that  they  enlisted  to  go  to  war  and 
that  they  are  supposed  to  be  men  of  nerve,  I  think  it 
excusable,  don't  you?  They'll  get  the  worst  joshing  they 
ever  got,  from  now  on,  and  the  record  of  what  they 
have  done  in  the  ship  will  accompany  them  clear  to 
Manila. 

I  guess  this  about  completes  the  story  of  the  day. 
I  am  afraid  that  these  letters  that  I  am  writing  you 
are  not  interesting,  and  that  it  will  bore  you  to  read  them, 
but  they  are  the  best  I  can  do  now.  You  see,  I'm  in  a 
little  world  that  is  separated  for  the  time  being  from  the 
rest  of  creation.  The  population  of  this  little  world  is 
under  five  hundred,  and  it  is  made  up,  like  the  big  world, 
chiefly  of  most  uninteresting  people.  At  least  they  are 
uninteresting  to  you,  away  back  in  the  East.  A  contract 
to  write  a  letter  a  day  in  this  little  world,  and  have  the 
letter  interesting,  is  about  as  big  a  job  as  I  have  tackled 
in  some  time.  But  I  like  to  write,  nevertheless,  because 
the  letters  bring  me  nearer  to  you  and  to  the  little  ones  I 
have  left  behind. 

S.  S.  City  of  Peking,  Sunday,  August  26,  1900. 
I  had  a  most  enjoyable  morning  to-day,  all  things  con- 
sidered, and  fooled  myself  delightfully.  The  last  thing 
I  did  before  I  left  San  Francisco  was  to  buy  a  copy 
of  the  Sunday  Sim  of  August  5.  That  was  the  last  paper 
to  reach  there  before  I  sailed.  I  put  it  away  in  my  grip, 
and  studiously  avoided  touching  it.  This  morning  when 
I  got  up  I  went  to  the  big  tank  I  told  you  about  the  other 
day  and  jumped  in  and  had  a  swim.     After  that  I  got 


20  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

shaved  and  dressed,  and  went  down  in  the  grip  and  got 
The  Sun.  I  strolled  up  the  deck  with  it,  lit  a  cigar,  and 
sat  down  to  read,  just  as  if  I  had  been  only  a  mile  or  so 
away  from  New  York.  Everything  in  it,  of  course,  was 
news,  fine  and  fresh,  three  weeks  old  though  it  was. 
Maybe  I  didn't  enjoy  reading  it !  I  was  the  envy  of  the 
other  passengers,  too,  I  can  tell  you.  We  had  a  fine  joke, 
possibly  silly,  but  nevertheless  with  fun  in  it,  about  the 
newsboy  who  had  come  aboard  during  the  night  with 
the  morning  papers.  I  divided  the  paper  up  into  as  many 
pieces  as  there  were  pages,  and  pretty  soon  half  the  pas- 
sengers were  reading,  while  the  other  half  stood  around 
enviously,  and  had  to  take  the  good-natured  joshing 
about  their  being  sleepy-heads,  staying  in  bed  too  late 
to  catch  the  newsboy,  and  all  that. 

The  pages  are  still  passing  around,  and  everybody  is 
happier  than  he  was  yesterday.  I've  succeeded  in  read- 
ing about  half  the  paper  so  far,  and  as  all  the  pages  that 
I  haven't  read  are  busy  now,  I  take  the  opportunity  to 
write  the  daily  letter. 

It  is  a  beautiful  morning  out  here  on  the  Pacific.  Half 
an  hour  ago  we  passed  a  great  school  of  porpoises  that 
played  around  the  ship  as  gracefully  as  you  please.  They 
have  all  left  us  now.  The  sea  that  yesterday  was  a  mass 
of  foam  and  whipping  waves  is  to-day  almost  as  smooth 
as  glass.  Yesterday  it  was  stormy  all  day,  and  before 
night  came  we  were  bobbing  about  in  the  water  like  a 
huge  cork.  The  waves  were  so  high  that  we  had  to  close 
the  port  to  keep  the  water  from  washing  us  out  of  our 
staterooms.  Last  night  it  rained  harder  than  ever,  and 
about  midnight  there  was  a  downpour  so  heavy  that  it 
beat  down  the  sea  and  made  things  smooth;  Then  there 
was  a  beautiful  display  of  phosphorescence,  the  finest 
I  have  ever  seen.  The  sea  was  full  of  light.  Down  by 
the  side  of  the  vessel  the  water  sparkled  so  that  the  side 
of  the  ship  was  lighted  up.  Most  of  the  light  was  in 
the  form  of  sparks,  but  every  now  and  again  we  would 
see  a  great  ball  that  appeared  to  be  of  solid  blue-white. 
It  was  really  a  beautiful  sight,  but  only  a  few  of  the  pas- 
sengers saw  it,  because  it  was  so  rough,  early  in  the  even- 
ing, that  most  of  them  took  to  their  beds. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  ^1 

S.  S.  City  of  Peking,  Tuesday,  August  28,  1900. 

Three  days  more  of  this,  and  then,  if  I'm  lucky,  I'll  be 
on  land  again !  The  captain  of  the  Peking  told  me  this 
morning  that  we  would  arrive  at  Yokohama  on  Friday. 
I  can  tell  you  I'm  not  a  bit  unhappy,  either.  Sailing  on 
the  ocean  blue  is  all  right,  but  when  you  are  straight  in  for 
upwards  of  twenty  days,  with  never  a  let-up,  it  gets  to  be 
about  the  most  tiresome  thing  you  can  imagine.  We 
struck  the  Japanese  Current  this  morning,  and  now  the 
ship's  officers  say  we  will  make  less  speed  until  we  arrive 
almost  on  the  coast  of  Japan.  The  Japanese  Current  is 
almost  the  same  as  the  Gulf  Stream  in  the  Atlantic.  You 
know  the  Gulf  Stream  starts  down  by  Florida  and  runs 
up  the  coast  and  then  clear  across  the  Atlantic  Ocean, 
where  it  washes  the  coast  of  Ireland  and  makes  that  coun- 
try fruitful  and  habitable.  The  Japanese  Current  starts 
near  Japan  and  runs  east  across  the  Pacific,  sweeping  the 
Aleutian  Islands  and  the  shore  of  Alaska. 

Things  have  been  getting  duller  and  duller  on  the  boat 
since  we  left  Honolulu.  Everybody  is  tired,  and  every- 
body is  grouty  and  impatient  with  everybody  else.  We 
are  all  a  lot  of  children,  are  we  not  ?  The  only  thing  that 
has  happened  to-day  to  vary  the  monotony  was  a  little 
rain  this  afternoon.  It  did  not  last  long,  but  enough  of 
a  sea  was  kicked  up  to  send  the  timid  ones  below  and  to 
bed  for  fear  of  sickness. 

Grand  Hotel,  Ltd.,  Yokohama,  September  2,  1900. 

The  captain  told  the  truth,  for  once  at  least.  We  got 
our  first  glimpse  of  the  coast  of  Japan  just  a  little  while 
after  I  had  finished  my  letter  to  you  yesterday,  and  we 
anchored  in  the  Yeddo,  or  Yokohama,  Bay  at  just  about 
dark.  The  steamship  did  not  come  up  to  the  pier  here, 
but  anchored  away  out  in  the  stream.  First  it  was  outside 
of  a  breakwater,  and  there  we  were  surrounded  by  steam 
launches  and  boats.  One  of  them  was  a  launch  painted 
sky-blue,  with  a  yellow  smokestack.  She  was  the  quar- 
antine boat,  and  she  carried  four  doctors,  who  insisted 
on  examining  everybody  on  the  ship.  The  examination 
of  the  cabin  passengers  was  more  or  less  perfunctory,  but 
that  of  the  steerage  passengers  and  the  crew  was  more 


22  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

rigid,  though  it  seemed  to  me  farcical,  for  it  was  not 
rigid  enough  to  discover  any  disease  if  the  people  ex- 
amined had  any.  The  examination  took  the  best  part  of 
an  hour. 

In  the  meantime  the  Japs  on  the  other  steam  launches 
pleaded  with  the  passengers  who  crowded  the  rail  of  the 
Peking  to  go  to  this  or  that  hotel.  The  launches  were  all 
hotel  launches,  and  the  men  on  them  were  runners  for 
the  houses.  Everybody  on  the  Peking  was  half  crazy  for 
news,  and  they  lined  the  ship's  rail  and  pleaded  with  the 
runners  as  hard  as  the  runners  with  them.  The 
first  news  we  got  was  that  Peking  had  been  re- 
lieved, and  that  the  first  armies  to  enter  the  city  were 
the  American  and  Japanese.  Then  we  heard  that  all  the 
ministers  were  safe,  and  that  the  allied  forces  were  occu- 
pying the  city,  most  of  which  was  in  ruins.  Finally  we 
got  a  little  bundle  of  papers  and  a  lot  of  little  pink  printed 
slips  that  gave  us  a  summary  of  what  had  happened;  but 
it  was  a  thin  summary. 

The  examination  of  the  passengers  took  so  long  a  time 
that  it  was  nearly  dark  when  we  started  to  go  inside  the 
breakwater  to  anchor  for  the  night.  The  launches  all 
followed  us  in,  and  the  moment  we  stopped  there  was  the 
wildest  scramble  I  ever  saw  for  the  boat.  The  runners 
made  it,  of  course,  and  they  had  seen  every  passenger  in- 
side of  two  minutes,  I  think.  I  was  with  Louis  Able,  the 
assistant  manager  of  the  Standard  Oil  Company  in  Japan, 
and  Lieutenant  Holcomb  of  the  United  States  Navy.  We 
took  the  Grand  Hotel  launch  and  were  landed  ashore,  and 
about  two  minutes  after  that  I  was  getting  my  first  jinrik- 
isha  ride. 

You  never  saw  one  of  these  contrivances  for  human  tor- 
ture, nor  had  I  until  that  moment.  Lll  send  you  a  little 
Grand  Hotel  book  by  this  mail,  and  you  will  find  a  picture 
of  one  of  them  in  that.  They  are  one-man  carriages,  on 
two  wheels,  with  a  regular  carriage  body.  They  have 
shafts  like  a  regular  carriage,  and  when  you  step  into  one 
the  man  who  owns  it  gets  between  the  shafts  like  a  horse 
and  starts  off  with  you  at  a  dog-trot,  which  he  keeps  up 
as  long  as  you  are  in  the  rig.    These  fellows,  they  tell  me. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  23 

run  as  much  as  forty  miles  a  day  and  never  tire.  If  you 
are  particularly  heavy,  or  if  you  are  going  through  a  hilly 
country,  you  hire  two  men,  and  the  second  man  pushes. 
We  only  took  a  man  each.  It's  a  funny  sensation  when 
the  runner  first  steps  between  the  shafts  and  starts  off. 
On  each  shaft  is  a  lantern  made  of  paper — regular  Chinese 
or  Japanese  lanterns,  such  as  we  have  in  the 
States — and  these  furnish  light  at  night.  Well,  to  get 
back  to  the  sensation.  When  the  runner  lifts  up  the 
shafts  you  are  forced  back  into  a  reclining  position,  and 
then  you  are  in  mortal  terror  of  going  over  backward 
until  you  reach  your  destination.  My  first  ride  was  about 
ten  minutes  long.  It  took  us  that  time  to  reach  the  Grand 
Hotel.  There  was  a  regular  procession,  I  guess  as  many 
as  twenty-five  of  the  things  in  a  line,  each  with  a  guest  of 
the  hotel  aboard.  I  wasn't  sorry  to  get  out  of  the  con- 
trivance, I  tell  you. 

The  Grand  Hotel  is  an  American  house  run  by  Ameri- 
cans, and  if  it  had  not  been  for  the  Jap  servants,  I  could 
have  imagined  that  I  was  at  a  fairly  good  hotel  in  the 
United  States.  The  place  fronts  on  the  bay  and  has  broad 
verandas,  with  tables  and  chairs  everywhere.  Everybody 
there,  including  the  Japs,  talks  English,  so  there  was  no 
trouble  at  all  in  getting  along.  Our  party  did  not  lose  any 
time  in  going  into  the  dining  room.  Twenty  days  of 
ship's  fare  had  just  about  made  us  ready  to  eat  anything. 
Maybe  it  was  because  we  were  so  hungry  that  the  food 
tasted  so  good.  I  really  think  that  at  the  time  it  seemed 
to  be  about  the  best  food  ever  put  before  a  human,  and 
we  all  ate  as  if  it  were  the  last  meal  we  expected  to  get  or 
the  first  we  had  ever  had — I  don't  know  exactly  which. 

Nothing  would  do  after  the  meal  but  we  should  have 
another  jinrikisha  ride,  and  we  went  all  over  the  bloom- 
ing town.  I've  been  in  some  queer  places  in  my  travels, 
but  I  don't  remember  any  that  approached  this.  The 
streets  are  narrow,  and  there  are  practically  no  sidewalks. 
Everybody  rides  in  these  queer  wagons.  The  price  of 
them,  by  the  way,  is  20  sen  an  hour.  A  sen  is  half  a 
cent,  so  in  our  money  it  costs  10  cents  an  hour.  There 
isn't  much  excuse  for  walking,  is  there,  at  that  price. 


24  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

particularly  as  you  get  plenty  of  exercise  in  the  ricky, 
as  it  is  called  for  short?  But  think  of  running  an  hour 
for  lo  cents,  and  real  running,  too ! 

In  our  journey  around  in  the  evening  we  went  through 
the  bad  as  well  as  the  good  parts  of  the  town.  The  bad 
part  is  fenced  in.  Tea-houses  are  on  both  sides  of  the 
street  there,  and  the  women  squat  in  them  behind  bars. 
The  whole  front  of  the  houses  is  barred  like  animal  cages 
in  the  circus,  and  these  women  looked  for  all  the  world 
like  caged  animals,  as  they  squatted  in  their  rags  and 
smirked  and  tried  to  look  pleasant.  We  got  back  to  the 
hotel  about  ii  o'clock,  and  went  to  bed  on  shore  again. 
I  had  a  bully  night's  sleep,  but  of  course  woke  up  too 
early.  You  see,  on  the  ship  I  have  been  going  to  bed  at 
9  o'clock  and  getting  up  at  five. 

Well,  I  woke  up  at  five  this  morning,  and  went  to  the 
window  of  my  room.  I  found  it  opened  on  a  canal,  or 
creek,  that  was  jammed  full  of  boats.  It  was  just  day- 
light, and  the  men  in  these  boats  were  stirring  about  and 
getting  ready  for  their  day's  work.  They  were  a  funny- 
looking  lot,  indeed.  Their  clothes  consisted  of  a  long 
sheet  of  cloth  and  a  sash — no  shirt  or  trousers,  no  coats, 
but  just  the  sheet.  They  got  their  boats  out  by  pushing 
on  the  bottom  of  the  creek  with  long  poles,  and  when  they 
were  clear  of  the  creek  they  put  up  masts,  hoisted  great 
square  sails,  and  went  off  as  nice  as  you  please. 

While  the  boats  were  going  out,  the  streets  filled  up  with 
the  laboring  classes,  men  and  women  on  their  way  to 
work.  The  women  were  dressed  exactly  like  the  men, 
except  that  their  hair  was  done  up  diflferently.  Their 
shoes  were  blocks  of  wood  like  this  "77"  »  one  block 
on  which  the  foot  rested,  two  little  smaller  blocks  on 
edge,  nailed  to  the  bottom  of  the  flat  block,  and  all  held 
on  by  a  strap  fastened  on  either  side  of  the  block  of  wood, 
and  a  thin  strap  fastened  on  the  end  of  the  block  and 
going  up  from  there  and  joining  the  mainstrap.  When 
the  shoe  is  on,  this  second  strap  goes  between  the  big 
toe  and  its  next-door  neighbor.  The  foot  can't  be  easily 
kept  in  place  if  it  is  lifted  clear  of  the  ground,  so  the 
wearers  go  clattering  and  scuffling  along,  each  shoe  mak- 
ing as  much  noise  as  a  team  of  horses.     The  wearers 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  25 

mince  along,  too.    They  take  little  short  steps,  and  turn 
in  their  toes  in  most  astounding  fashion. 

Now  for  the  disappointment.  When  I  got  here 
I  found  a  cable  telling  me  to  go  straight  to  Shanghai, 
as  quickly  as  possible,  and  get  a  new  man  there.  That 
means  that  I'll  have  to  go  back  aboard  the  Peking  to- 
night. She  sails  for  Kobe,  Nagasaki,  and  Shanghai  at 
daybreak  to-morrow  (Sunday)  morning.  We  go  through 
the  Inland  Sea  and  the  Yellow  Sea,  and  I'll  have  another 
chance  to  write  you  letters  on  yellow  paper.  I'll  tell  you 
more  about  the  Japs  in  my  letter  to-morrow. 

S.  S.  City  of  Peking,  Sunday,  September  2,  1900. 

Yokohama  has  disappeared,  and  we  are  bound  for 
Kobe.  There  is  not  much  more  to  say  about  the  former 
than  I  told  you  in  the  letter  I  wrote  from  the  Grand 
Hotel.  Saturday  I  spent  sight-seeing  and  transacting 
what  business  I  had  to  do. 

I  told  you  about  the  jinrikishas,  and  how  men  took  the 
place  of  horses  in  drawing  other  men  around.  Of  course 
they  have  horses,  too,  but  they  are  few  and  far  between, 
and  the  natives  don't  altogether  understand  them.  When 
a  lady  goes  out  driving,  for  instance,  a  native  always  runs 
ahead  of  the  train.  I  don't  know  whether  it  is  to  warn 
people  or  to  catch  the  horses  if  they  start  to  run  away. 

I  visited  some  of  the  shops  in  the  native  city.  They  are 
nearly  all  of  them  built  like  our  country  woodsheds.  They 
are  only  a  story  high,  and  have  sloping  roofs,  with  no 
fronts.  The  goods  are  all  displayed  on  tables  that  slope 
down  like  the  vegetable  stands  in  front  of  our  grocery 
stores.  The  goods  are,  some  of  them,  very  fine,  espe- 
cially the  carved  woods  and  the  silks.  You  know  Japan 
silks  are  the  finest  in  the  world.  The  prices  of  things 
were  away  up  out  of  sight  because  it  was  steamer  day, 
when  the  natives  put  up  the  price  of  everything,  know- 
ing that  visitors  are  not  acquainted  with  the  regular 
prices.  I  did  not  buy  anything  for  this  reason,  and  the 
further  one  that  T  saw  nothing  that  could  not  be  pur- 
chased in  China  for  a  great  deal  less  money,  and  there 
was  no  use  buying  and  having  the  trouble  of  carrying 
the  goods  around, 


26  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

I  went  to  tiffin,  which  is  the  name  they  give  lunch  out 
here,  with  Mr.  George  M.  Andrews  and  his  wife,  and 
Mr.  Abel  and  Lieutenant  Holcomb,  about  whom  I  have 
told  you.  The  place  where  we  had  the  meal  served  is 
owned  by  Mr.  Andrews,  who  is  a  business  man  here.  It  is 
up  on  a  high  bluff,  overlooking  the  Yokohama  Bay  The 
view  from  there  was  beautiful.  After  tiffin  I  went  to  the 
United  Club  with  Abel  and  met  several  friends  of  Mr. 
Eddy,  who  gave  me  the  letter  I  told  you  about  before  I 
left.  I  had  a  pretty  good  time  there,  and  then  dined  at  the 
hotel.  That  wound  up  the  visit  to  Yokohama.  We  all 
came  aboard  the  steamer  at  9  o'clock  and  sailed  at  five 
in  the  morning.  Kobe  is  only  a  twenty-four-hour  run, 
and  we  will  get  there  in  the  morning,  when  I'll  write 
again. 

The  Oriental  Hotel,  Kobe, 

Monday  September  3,  1900. 

I've  time  here  for  just  a  line,  which  will  catch  the 
steamer  that  takes  the  letters  I  posted  at  Yokohama.  It 
will  go  by  rail  to  Yokohama  and  catch  the  steamer  there. 

We  left  Yokohama  on  Saturday  night,  or  rather  Sun- 
day at  daylight,  had  a  fine  trip,  and  got  in  here  a  little 
while  ago.  We  stay  only  a  few  hours,  and  then  leave  for 
Nagasaki.  I'll  mail  longer  letters  to  you  from  there.  I 
expect  to  reach  Shanghai  the  6th,  and  then  I'll  know  just 
what  sort  of  job  is  before  me.  The  dispatches  in  to- 
day's papers  seem  to  indicate  that  the  trouble  is  about 
over. 

S.  S.  City  of  Peking,  Tuesday,  September  4,  1900. 

I  am  very  much  afraid  there  has  been  a  bad  mix-up  in 
my  letters  to  you.  As  I  told  you  before  I  started,  there 
are  several  lines  of  steamers  running  out  here,  and  some 
of  them  are  faster  than  others.  The  northern  route,  that 
is,  the  Canadian  Pacific  steamers,  takes  only  twelve  days 
from  Vancouver.  Well,  all  steamers  carry  mail.  When 
the  Peking  got  to  Yokohama  I  mailed  the  letters  I  had 
written  on  the  way.  The  next  mail  steamer  was  the  Rio, 
leaving  September  5.  When  I  got  to  Kobe  yesterday,  I 
found  I  could  get  another  letter  off  on  that  steamer,  and  I 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  27 

wrote  it.  Then,  later,  I  learned  that  the  Empress  of  India 
was  expected  along  in  three  or  four  days,  and  that  letters 
mailed  Z'ia  Vancouver  would  reach  Brooklyn  three  or  four 
days  before  mail  that  started  earlier  on  the  Rio.  Without 
thinking,  I  marked  that  letter  "  via  Vancouver,"  and  of 
course,  you  received  it  before  you  got  the  other  lot.  I 
suppose  that  when  you  got  only  the  one  letter  you  thought 
I  had  forgotten  to  write  as  I  promised.  Well,  forgive  me, 
and  I'll  try  not  to  have  it  happen  again.  You  will  get  by 
the  same  mail  with  this  letter  one  I  wrote  Sunday  on  the 
Peking  and  did  not  take  ashore  with  me  to  mail  because  I 
didn't  think  there  would  be  any  chance  of  getting  it  off 
quicker  than  if  I  mailed  it  at  Nagasaki,  which  is  our 
next  stop.      I  guess  that  will  explain  the  whole  muss. 

Now,  I  suppose  you  want  to  know  what  I  did  in  Kobe. 
About  the  first  thing  I  saw  in  the  Oriental  Hotel  there 
was  a  pair  of  American  scales,  I  jumped  aboard  and 
weighed  myself.  I  weighed  193  pounds,  so  you  will  see 
that  I  haven't  lost  any  weight.  Kobe  is  a  beautiful  town, 
as  Japanese  towns  go.  It  is  a  modern  city.  The  ancient 
town  is  Hiogo.  That  is  now  the  native  part  of  the  city 
of  Kobe.  The  place  is  as  full  of  jinrikisha  men  as  was 
Yokohama,  but  with  this  difference :  they  wore  clothes. 
They  were  all  dressed  in  skin-tight  suits  of  blue  cloth. 
They  had  the  usual  soup-dish  hats,  and  they  were  just  as 
husky  runners.  During  the  afternoon  I  visited  a  number 
of  shops  and  saw  some  beautiful  silk  work  and  painted 
work,  but  all  very  high-priced.  Clothes  didn't  seem  to 
bother  the  common  natives  at  all.  The  women  wore 
nothing  above  their  waists,  as  a  rule,  and  the  men  wore 
nothing  below  theirs. 

They  have  a  fine  line  of  temples  and  Japanese  gods  in 
Kobe,  and  I  visited  a  few  of  them.  You  might  think  that 
a  temple  was  a  place  where  people  go  in  and  worship,  bu4: 
it  does  not  appear  to  be  so  here.  It  is  the  place  where  the 
wooden  gods  live.  Take  the  Ikuta  temple,  for  instance. 
It  is  only  half  a  mile  from  the  foreign  settlement.  It  is 
a  big  square  building,  with  a  fancy  roof  and  four  columns. 
It  is  built  up  off  the  ground  on  stilts.  There  are  no  sides 
to  it.  At  the  farthest  end  from  the  street,  one  on  each  side 
of  the  temple,   sit  gods  homely   enough  to  scare  you. 


28  ORDEREDTOCHINA 

These  gods  are  almost  twice  as  big  as  ordinary  men,  and 
are  made  of  wood,  with  painted  faces.  One  is  for  war 
and  the  other  for  peace,  I  suppose.  While  the  temple 
where  they  sit  has  no  sides,  it  is  surrounded  by  a  high 
picket  fence.  There  is  a  gate  to  this  fence,  and  in  front 
of  the  gate  is  a  horse-trough,  to  which  the  worshipers 
come  and  dump  offerings  of  rice  or  something  else  to  ap-* 
pease  the  gods  and  keep  them  good-natured.  Off  to  the 
left  of  this  main  temple  are  a  lot  of  little  temples.  There 
is  one  to  the  hogs,  one  to  the  horses,  and  one  to  several 
other  animals.  In  each  of  these  temples  is  a  wooden 
image  of  the  animal  worshiped  there,  and  in  front  of 
each  is  the  same  sort  of  a  trough  in  which  the  people  de- 
posit their  offerings  to  keep  the  gods  in  good  humor. 

We  had  to  sail  from  Kobe  at  6  o'clock  last  night, 
so  I  didn't  get  a  chance  to  see  much  more  than  I  have  told 
you  about.  We  are  due  in  Nagaski  in  the  morning.  They 
have  a  still  finer  line  of  temples  there,  I  am  told,  and  I  am 
going  to  visit  one  and  find  out  what  it  is  all  about.  To- 
day we  are  traveling  through  the  Inland  Sea.  It  reminds 
me  very  much  of  a  trip  up  the  Hudson  River,  About 
half  an  hour  ago  we  passed  a  Japanese  junk  that  was  the 
image  of  the  boat  that  Columbus  came  to  America  in.  As 
I  looked  at  it  I  could  not  help  thinking  of  the  pictures  in 
the  old  geographies,  and  I  could  almost  see  Columbus 
standing  in  the  stern,  addressing  his  mutinous  crew,  and 
telling  them  they'd  see  land  or  he'd  bust.  This  style  of 
boat  is  the  popular  one  here.  There  are  hundreds  of  them 
around.  They  all  have  the  same  general  appearance,  but 
this  particular  one  struck  me  all  in  a  heap. 

I  send  you  all  the  love  I  can  give,  and  that's  all  I'm 
capable  of.  I  long  to  see  you  and  the  children,  but  of 
course  that  is  out  of  the  question  for  a  little  while. 

S.  S.  City  of  Peking, 
Wednesday,  September  5,  1900. 
I  am  writing  this  letter  on  the  boat,  although  we  are  in 
Nagasaki.  I  can  get  as  early  a  mail  from  Shanghai  as 
from  here,  so  I  did  not  write  it  while  I  was  on  shore.  We 
got  here  last  night  about  midnight,  but  we  could  not 
come  into  port,  and  of  course  could  not  land,  because  we 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  29 

had  not  Heen  passed  by  the  doctor.  The  Japs  are  pecuHar 
about  the  quarantine  business.  They  won't  even  take  the 
word  of  their  own  people,  so,  no  matter  how  many  ports 
you  g'o  into  in  Japan,  and  no  matter  how  many  times  you 
are  examined,  you  are  to  be  examined  again  at  every  port 
you  touch.  This  is  our  third  Japanese  port,  and  we  have 
all  been  examined  by  three  Japanese  doctors.  The  Jap 
doctors  came  aboard  this  morning,  shortly  after  daylight, 
and  put  us  through  the  usual  course  of  sprouts.  After 
that  they  told  us  we  might  go  ashore,  and  everybody 
went. 

Nagasaki  is  on  the  extreme  western  end  of  the  island 
of  Kiusiu.  It  is  one  of  the  oldest  towns  on  the  island, 
and  was  the  first  place  in  all  Japan  to  have  trade  with  the 
outside  world.  The  Dutch  got  a  trade  concession  years 
ago,  and  they  were  permitted  to  occupy  a  little  island  just 
out  of  the  Inland  Sea.  Not  one  of  them  was  permitted 
to  leave  the  island  and  go  to  the  mainland,  and  to  prevent 
such  a  possibility  Japanese  guards  were  stationed  every- 
where on  the  island,  and  it  was  fenced  in.  When  the 
Japs  wanted  to  trade  with  the  Dutch  they  went  to  the 
island,  met  the  merchants  at  the  gates,  and  did  their 
business  there.  The  Dutch  were  permitted  to  have  three 
ships  land  at  the  island  each  year,  and  except  for  them 
they  had  no  communication  at  all  with  the  outside  world. 
The  gates  of  this  island  were  closed  at  dusk  every  night, 
and  they  were  never  opened  until  sunrise  next  day. 

In  the  harbor  here  is  the  island  of  Pappenburg.  It  was 
here  that  the  first  Christians  who  entered  Japan 
made  their  last  stand  when  the  Japs  got  after  them.  They 
were  all  killed,  of  course,  there  being  several  thousand 
Japs  to  mighty  few  Christians. 

The  most  noticeable  thing  I  saw  about  the  town  was 
the  graveyards.  There  were  gravestones  on  every  hill- 
side, from  the  bottom  of  the  hills  to  the  top.  The  Japs 
cremate  their  dead  and  bury  the  ashes,  putting  a  head- 
stone over  the  spot.  As  ashes  don't  take  up  much  room, 
the  headstones  arc  closer  than  the  stalks  in  a  cornfield — 
yes,  a  great  deal  closer.  The  Japs  revere  their  dead,  and 
their  graveyards  are  never  disturbed.  You  can  figure  for 
yourself;  Nagasaki  is  several  hundred  years  old,  and,  in 


30  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

addition  to  the  ordinary  causes  of  death,  it  has  had  visits 
from  about  every  known  plague,  particularly  cholera. 
There  are  more  graves  by  thousands  and  thousands  than 
there  are  living  people  in  the  city.  Looking  from  the 
ship,  up  the  sides  of  the  hills,  you  see  almost  a  solid  mass 
of  stones. 

The  city  is  the  headquarters  for  the  tortoise-shell  in- 
dustry in  the  East,  and  much  of  the  best  tortoise-shell  work 
of  the  world  is  done  here.  When  I  went  ashore  this  morn- 
ing I  had  breakfast  at  the  hotel,  which  faces  the  bay,  and 
then  went  out  to  look  at  the  tortoise-shell  curio  shops.  I 
guess  I  went  into  forty  of  them,  but  it  was  the  same  in 
these  shops  as  it  was  in  Kobe  and  Yokohama.  It  was 
steamer  day  and  prices  had  gone  up  soaring.  Moreover, 
the  dealers  wouldn't  be  beaten  down  in  their  prices.  In 
addition  to  the  ordinary  useful  things,  like  combs  and 
brushes  and  hairpins,  the  Japs  manufacture  the  shell  into 
many  novelties,  such  as  cigar  and  cigarette  cases,  minia- 
ture furniture,  little  jinrikishas,  and  things  of  that  kind. 
There  is  hardly  anything  that  you  can  ask  for  in  the  shape 
of  designs  that  you  can't  get,  though  the  Japs  are  best  in 
carving  the  horrible-looking  dragons  that  one  nearly  al- 
ways associates  with  the  Asiatics.  I  saw  a  lot  of  very 
beautifully  carved  ivory  work,  too,  but  the  prices  for  that 
were  away  out  of  sight. 

After  I  got  through  the  tortoise-shell  places,  I  went  to 
some  sword-makers.  You  know  the  Japanese  are  famous 
for  their  swords.  They  are  the  finest  in  the  world.  The 
best  of  them  will  cut  through  iron  and  not  turn  the  edge. 
I  saw  many  with  the  sacred  dragon  carved  on  them,  and 
some  that  were  two  hundred  and  three  hundred  years 
old.  Of  course  I  had  no  use  for  a  sword,  and  didn't  want 
to  buy  any.  I  just  wanted  to  see  them  to  satisfy  my 
curiosity. 

The  shops  of  Nagasaki,  as  a  rule,  are  better  than  those 
of  either  Yokohama  or  Kobe.  Only  one  kind  of  goods 
is  sold  in  a  store,  and  each  has  its  workshop  where  the 
goods  sold  are  made.  The  workshop  is  right  along  the 
sidewalk,  and  you  can  see  the  men  working  there  at 
whatever  kind  of  thing  is  sold  in  the  store.  The  show- 
rooms are  all  upstairs,  and  the  proprietor  and  his  wife, 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  31 

and  usually  his  children,  try  to  sell  things  to  you.  They 
are  extremely  polite.  All  the  Japs  are,  in  fact.  When  you 
enter  a  store,  the  proprietor  strikes  himself  in  the  pit  of 
the  stomach  with  his  fist  and  pushes  his  stomach  back, 
and  that  makes  his  head  come  forward.  He  keeps  on 
coming  until  his  head  is  on  a  level  with  his  hips.  By  and 
by  his  wife  comes  in  and  she  stands  in  front  of  you  and 
punches  herself  in  the  stomach,  and  her  head  comes  for- 
ward in  the  same  sort  of  bow.  Then  the  children,  one 
by  one,  present  themselves,  each  punches  himself  or  her- 
self in  the  stomach,  and  the  work  of  buying  or  selling  or 
of  showing  goods  begins.  The  Japs  don't  seem  to  mind 
the  trouble  of  showing  goods  at  all,  no  matter  whether 
you  buy  or  not,  and  if  you  have  taken  up  an  hour  of  their 
time  and  bought  nothing,  it  makes  no  difference.  When 
you  leave,  every  mother's  son  of  them  pounds  the 
stomach  again.  When  you  come  out  of  the  store  your 
jinrikisha  man  thumps  his  stomach  and  bobs  forward 
his  head,  the  same  after  the  tenth  store  as  after  the  first, 
and  when  you  pay  and  dismiss  him  he  gives  himself  an 
extra  punch  that  sends  his  stomach  so  far  back  that  his 
head  nearly  raps  the  pavement. 

After  I  had  visited  the  shops  I  have  told  you  about,  I 
went  to  a  bazaar  where  they  sell  modern  porcelain,  and 
I  saw  some  dishes  that  would  make  your  mouth  water. 
They  were  the  only  cheap  things  I  saw,  and  I  intend  to 
get  some  of  them  on  my  way  back.  I  don't  think  I  ever 
saw  any  finer  ware  in  all  my  life.  It  would  grace  a  mil- 
lionaire's table. 

It  was  lunch  time  when  I  had  finished  here,  and  I  went 
with  Lieutenant  Holcomb,  and  Dr.  Holland  of  Westfield, 
Massachusetts,  to  a  tea-house  to  get  tiffin.  The  place  was 
half-way  up  a  steep  hill.  To  reach  it  we  had  to  go 
through  the  Tenderloin  District.  Here  I  saw  another 
curious  thing.  The  district  itself  was  the  same  as  the  one 
I  told  you  about  in  Yokohama, — the  women  in  cages  and 
all  that, — but  at  the  corner  of  the  street  that  began  the  dis- 
trict I  saw  a  little  square  house  with  a  Jap  policeman  in- 
side. As  we  approached  this  house  the  jinrikisha  men 
slowed  up  and  went  by  slowly.  The  policeman,  in  the 
meantime,  was  writing  furiously,  and  every  moment  or 


32  ORDEREDTOCHINA 

so  looked  up.  I  couldn't  make  out  what  he  was  doing. 
Afterward  I  learned  that  it  was  the  police  custom  to  take 
a  description  of  every  foreigner  who  goes  into  the  dis- 
trict and  the  number  of  the  jinrikisha  man  who  draws 
him.  This  is  for  the  protection  of  the  foreigner.  The 
police  know  where  he  was  seen  last  if  he  does  not  turn 
up. 

The  tea-house  where  we  had  tiffin  was,  as  I  said,  up  a 
hill.  The  jinrikisha  men  could  not  draw  us  up,  so,  when 
we  came  to  the  foot  of  the  hill,  we  had  to  walk.  It  was 
a  tough  climb,  but  the  view  when  we  reached  the  house 
was  well  worth  going  to  see.  We  could  see  all  the  coun- 
try around.  After  tiffin  I  went  back  to  the  hotel,  which, 
by  the  way,  is  the  worst  I  have  found  in  Japan,  and  I 
was  tired,  so  I  came  off  to  the  Peking,  and  here  I  am. 

Since  getting  here  I  have  been  watching  what  I  think  is 
the  most  curious  sight  I  have  seen  since  I  started — the 
coaling  of  the  ship  by  the  Japanese.  We  take  on  a  thou- 
sand tons  of  coal  here,  and  when  we  anchored  this  morn- 
ing the  whole  thousand  tons  in  ships  and  barges  were 
waiting  for  us.  In  an  hour  they  were  alongside.  In  the 
meantime,  half  a  dozen  boatloads  of  men,  women,  and 
children  made  out  from  the  shore  and  climbed  aboard 
the  barges.  There  they  stood,  almost  stripped,  chatter- 
ing like  a  lot  of  school  children,  waiting  for  the  work  to 
begin.  The  moment  the  ships  and  barges  were  alongside, 
the  men  rigged  swinging  scaffolds,  each  holding  two 
stands.  The  ports  leading  to  the  ship's  coal  bunkers  were 
opened,  and  the  men  rigged  a  big  chute  leading  into  them. 
Then  the  boss  of  the  job  called  time,  and  the  men,  women, 
and  children  formed  lines.  Other  men  jumped  on  the 
coal,  followed  by  hundreds  of  little  baskets.  These  men 
had  shovels,  and  they  began  digging  into  the  coal  and 
shoveling  into  the  baskets.  A  basket  would  hold  just  a 
shovelful.  The  instant  it  was  filled  it  was  grabbed  by 
a  man  who  tossed  it  to  the  next  in  line,  and  up  and  up  it 
went,  from  hand  to  hand,  to  the  last  man,  who  emptied  it 
into  the  chute  and  hurled  it  aside  to  catch  the  second 
basket,  and  the  third,  and  so  on.  A  basket  once  started 
never  stopped,  and  at  times  they  went  up  this  human  ele- 
vator at  the  rate  of  sixty  a  minute.     At  every  seventh 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  33 

basket  the  man  or  woman  who  emptied  yelled  "  Hoy !  " 
which  meant  that  a  tubful  should  be  tallied  by  a  man  who 
kept  a  tally-sheet.  The  Japs  measure  their  coal  by  the 
tubful.  The  length  of  the  human  elevator  depended  upon 
the  distance  the  coal  was  from  the  chute  into  which  it  was 
to  empty.  Sometimes  there  were  as  many  as  sixty  in  a 
line,  and  the  baskets  came  with  a  steadiness  that  reminded 
me  of  an  endless  chain  running'  over  a  wheel.  Swing 
your  arms  back  and  forth  in  front  of  you  as  fast  as  you 
can  swing  them,  and  I'll  warrant  they  won't  move  as  fast 
as  that  coal  did.  To  give  you  some  idea  of  how  fast  it 
came,  I  can  tell  you  that  a  little  over  250  tons  were  put 
into  the  ship  in  the  first  three  hours. 

I  couldn't  help  saying  to  myself,  as  I  saw  the  perspira- 
tion pouring  from  them,  "  Poor,  miserable  creatures !  " 
and  yet  they  seemed  happy  and  contented.  As  they 
worked  they  sang.  Once  in  a  long,  long  time  a  man  or  a 
woman  would  let  a  basket  slip,  and  when  he  grabbed 
wildly  for  it  he  would  be  hit  in  the  head  by  the  next 
basket,  and  before  he  recovered  four  or  five  baskets  would 
be  on  top  of  him.  Then,  for  an  instant,  the  stream  of  coal 
would  stop,  and  men  and  women  would  fairly  double  up, 
laughing  at  the  unfortunate.  He'd  get  himself  together 
finally,  and  the  stream  would  start  again. 

One  of  these  human  elevators  was  made  up  wholly  of 
women  and  girls.  They  worked  as  fast  as,  or  faster  than, 
the  men,  and  their  song  was  simply  "  cluck,  cluck,  cluck, 
cluck,  cluck,  cluck,  cluck,  cluck."  Their  voices  were 
musical,  and  hour  after  hour  it  was  "  cluck,  cluck,  cluck, 
cluck,  cluck,  cluck,"  endlessly,  while  the  endless  stream 
of  baskets  shot  from  woman  to  woman  to  the  chute.  I 
got  back  to  the  ship  some  time  before  chow-time  (they 
call  food  "chow"  out  here,  you  know),  and  I  watched 
their  work  with  the  very  greatest  interest.  I  couldn't 
help  thinking  how  different  the  lot  of  the  women  in  the 
United  States  is  from  that  of  the  Japanese  women. 

Which  reminds  me,  by  the  way,  that  the  women  here 
all  work  the  same  as  the  men.  While  I  was  on  shore  I 
passed  a  new  brick  building  in  course  of  erection.  The 
hod-carriers  were  all  women,  and  the  bricklayers  were, 
many  of  them,  women,  too.    The  building  was  up  two  or 


34  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

three  stories,  and  there  the  women  were,  working  with 
the  unconcern  of  men  in  the  United  States.  I  have  seen 
nothing  in  the  hne  of  unskilled  labor  that  the  women 
didn't  do  as  well  as,  and  side  by  side  with,  the  men,  ex- 
cept in  the  matter  of  acting  as  horses.  They  don't  draw 
'rickshas,  and  I  haven't  seen  any  of  them  harnessed  to 
trucks,  as  I  saw  men  harnessed  in  Kobe. 

But  to  get  back  to  the  loading  of  coal  on  the  Peking. 
In  this  line  of  women  I  have  told  you  about  I  noticed  that 
several  had  the  blackest  kind  of  teeth.  Their  faces  were 
positively  repulsive  when  they  laughed.  I  thought  they 
were  simply  cases  of  decayed  teeth,  when  I  first  saw  them, 
but  they  were  so  completely  blackened  from  gum  to  edge 
that  I  made  inquiries,  and  found  that  the  women  with 
black  teeth  were  married,  and  those  whose  teeth  were  not 
black  were  not.  I  was  told  that  it  was  the  proper  thing 
here  for  a  woman,  when  she  marries,  to  blacken  her  teeth. 
This  shows  that  she  loves  her  husband  and  doesn't  care 
for  the  admiration  of  other  men,  for  she  makes  herself  so 
repulsive  that  other  men  won't  admire  her.  What  do 
you  think  of  that  for  the  depths  of  love  ?  The  stuff  they 
use,  I  was  told,  is  a  berry  dye,  and  in  time  it  wears  off,  so, 
in  case  of  an  emergency  like  the  husband's  death,  the 
women  have  a  chance,  after  a  while,  to  look  pretty  again 
and  catch  another. 

One  of  the  most  interesting  scenes  in  this  coaling 
operation  came  when  the  workers  all  stopped  for  chow. 
The  men  calmly  took  off  the  piece  of  muslin  that  passed 
around  their  waists  and  between  their  legs,  and  then 
jumped  overboard.  This  cloth  was  all  the  clothing  they 
wore.  Nobody  seemed  to  think  anything  of  their  being 
naked.  They  swam  around  a  while  and  then  pulled  them- 
selves back  on  the  boat,  dried  themselves  in  the  presence 
of  the  assembled  multitude,  and  put  on  the  cloths  again. 
By  that  time  their  chow  had  arrived  from  shore.  Each 
man  got  a  ball  of  boiled  rice  and  a  strip  of  dried  fish  that 
looked  like  a  banana  peeling.  They  fell  to,  and  from  the 
deck  of  the  Peking  they  seemed  to  be  eating  snowballs 
and  banana  peel.  They  took  less  than  half  an  hour  to 
finish,  and  then  began  the  endless  stream  of  baskets,  the 
songs  of  the  men  punctuated  every  few  seconds  with 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  35 

"  Hoy !  "  to  the  tally-man,  and  the  continuous  strain, 
"  cluck,  cluck,  cluck,  cluck,  cluck,  cluck,  cluck,  cluck, 
cluck,"  by  the  women.  It  was  all  mighty  interesting,  I 
can  tell  you,  and  I  only  wish  you  could  have  been  here  to 
see  it. 

Now  I  guess  I  have  told  you  pretty  fully  the  story 
of  the  day.  I  hope  it  has  interested  you  and  the  little 
ones,  as  it  certainly  interested  me.  We  are  supposed 
to  sail  at  midnight,  but  it  is  not  likely  that  we  will  get 
away  before  6  o'clock  in  the  morning.  We  have  975 
barrels  of  salt  beef  to  unload  yet.  It  is  for  our  soldiers  in 
Taku,  and  it  is  going  on  very  slowly.  This  letter  has 
been  such  a  long  one  that  I  will  try  not  to  weary  you 
with  another  to-morrow,  and  I'll  say  good-bye  until 
Friday,  when  I  hope  to  reach  the  end  of  my  journey — 
for  the  present  at  least — in  Shanghai,  though  if  we  don't 
leave  here  until  6  o'clock  in  the  morning  we  very  likely 
will  not  get  there  in  time  to  cross  the  bar,  and 
we'll  have  to  lie  outside  until  Saturday  morning.  That 
will  make  us  three  days  late,  for  we  are  more  than  two 
days  late  now. 

God  bless  you  and  the  babies,  and  care  for  all  of  you. 

The  AsTOR  House,  Shanghai, 

Saturday,  September  8,  1900. 

I  took  two  days  ofif,  instead  of  one,  for  the  reason  that 
there  was  only  the  same  old  humdrum  on  shipboard  and 
nothing  at  all  to  tell  that  under  any  circumstances  could 
possibly  interest  you.  As  you  will  see  by  the  letter-head, 
I  have  reached  Shanghai  and  am  now  on  the  mainland  of 
China.  Shanghai  is  up  the  Woo  Sung  River,  fourteen 
miles  farther  than  the  big  ships  go  and  nearly  forty  miles 
from  the  China  Sea.  We  had  our  first  sight  of  China 
yesterday  afternoon,  before  we  were  in  sight  of  solid 
ground.  It  was  when  we  met  the  mud-laden  water  of  the 
Woo  Sung  River.  It  was  as  brown  as  the  dress  you  were 
married  in,  and  I  don't  think  I  liked  it  much  better  than  I 
liked  that  dress.  About  half  an  hour  after  that  we  made 
out  a  warship  ahead,  and  everybody  crowded  to  the  bow 
of  the  ship  to  watch  her. 

It  must  have  been  an  hour  before  we  were  in  good 


36  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

seeing  distance,  and  then  we  could  see  that  she  was 
making  the  signal,  "  I  have  something  to  communicate." 
We  waited  for  her,  and  found  that  the  something  was  our 
pilot,  who  was  to  take  us  to  Shanghai.  It  was  the 
American  battleship  Oregon,  the  famous  old  Oregon  that 
did  the  business  at  Santiago.  Maybe  we  were  not  all 
proud  of  her.  We  had  to  wait  for  the  tide,  and  we 
dropped  anchor  right  alongside  of  her.  All  the  rest  of 
the  afternoon  was  spent  in  admiring  the  big  ship 
and  in  talking  about  her  achievements.  Captain  W., 
her  Captain,  came  over  to  visit  Captain  S.,  our  Captain, 
and  he  took  back  to  the  Oregon  with  him  a  big  box  of 
chow.  The  Oregon  was  four  days  out  of  Nagasaki, 
bound  for  Shanghai,  and  she  had  to  wait  for  a  full  moon 
in  order  to  go  in.  The  moon  affects  the  tides,  you  know, 
and  the  biggest  tide  comes  when  the  moon  is  full.  The 
Oregon  was  so  deep  in  the  water  that  she  had  to  wait  for 
the  deepest  water  she  could  get  to  cross  the  bar  at  the 
mouth  of  the  river.  It  will  be  full  moon  to-morrow 
evening,  and  that  will  enable  her  to  come  up.  When  she 
left  Nagasaki  her  Captain  thought  there  would  be  no 
trouble  in  getting  up  to  Shanghai,  so  he  took  only  three 
days'  chow  with  him.  He  was  as  glad  to  see  us  as  we 
were  to  see  him,  and  what  he  took  from  us  will  keep  them 
from  starving  to  death,  anyway. 

When  I  left  'Frisco  the  Oregon  had  just  gone  on  the 
rocks  in  the  China  Sea,  and  everybody  was  afraid  her 
end  had  come.  The  rocks  had  torn  a  hole  in  her,  twenty- 
five  feet  long  and  wide  enough  for  a  fat  man  to  walk 
through.  There  certainly  didn't  seem  to  be  any  chance 
to  save  her.  But  Captain  W.  and  the  men  aboard 
ship  were  American  sailors,  with  a  "  never  give  up " 
spirit.  The  only  thing  they  had  on  board  to  patch  the  big 
hole  with  was  pine  timber  an  inch  thick.  They  sent  their 
divers  down  and  put  a  lot  of  that  in  place,  and  then  they 
took  a  double  canvas  awning  and  fastened  on  the  boards 
with  that.  Then  they  got  the  big  pumps  working  and 
pumped  her  out  and  floated  her.  It  was  600  miles  across 
the  open  sea  to  the  nearest  dry  dock,  and  they  boldly  set 
sail.  There  were  more  than  a  thousand  tons  of  water  in 
the  hold,  and  two  big  centrifugal  pumps  kept  working  night 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  37 

and  day,  but  the  water  ran  in  as  fast  as  these  pumps  could 
take  it  out.  That  made  no  difference.  Away  went  the 
Oregon  to  Japan,  heading  for  the  Inland  Sea,  where  there 
is  a  dry  dock  big  enough  to  take  her  in,  and  though  some- 
times the  water  gained  on  the  pumps,  the  men  never  lost 
courage  and  the  ship  got  into  port  all  right.  She  was 
put  in  the  dry  dock  and  patched  with  oak  plank  fourteen 
inches  thick,  and  outside  of  that  a  steel  patch  two  inches 
thick  was  put  on.  When  she  came  off  the  dock  she  was 
as  good  as  new. 

Well,  we  left  the  Oregon  at  8  o'clock  last  night,  and 
started  up  the  Woo^  Sung  for  Shanghai.  We  came  to  the 
mouth  of  the  river  about  1 1  o'clock  and  anchored,  to  wait 
for  the  doctor  to  come  off  and  examine  us.  He  got 
around  about  6  o'clock  this  morning,  put  us  through  our 
sprouts,  and  told  us  we  might  go  ashore.  Then  we  found 
our  anchorage,  a  steam  tugboat  came  alongside,  every- 
body climbed  aboard  of  her,  and  the  trip  up  the  shallow 
river  was  begun.  We  passed  over  thirty  war  ships  of  all 
nationalities  going  up.  We  also  passed  a  lot  of  soldier 
camps.  You  see,  the  British,  French,  and  German  war- 
ships have  landed  troops  here,  though  there  is  no  need  for 
them,  and  has  been  none. 

The  tug  landed  us  at  a  little  pier  opposite  the  Shanghai 
Club.  The  first  man  I  laid  eyes  on  was  D.  He 
had  come  down  from  Peking  to  meet  me,  and  had  been 
waiting  for  me  nearly  a  week.  He  went  through  all  the 
fighting  up  there,  and  had  left  the  Chinese  city  with 
everything  comparatively  quiet.  After  I  got  my  baggage 
I  came  here  to  the  Astor  House,  and  here  I  am  now.  I 
haven't  had  a  chance  yet  to  look  around.  I  will  have  a 
little  time  this  afternoon,  and  I  will  write  you  again  in  the 
morning.  One  thing  is  certain,  I  am  as  far  away  from 
home  as  I  shall  go,  and  in  that  sense  I  am  at  the  end  of 
my  journey. 

Kiss  the  babies  for  me.  Tell  the  children  that  the  first 
thing  I  do  will  be  to  look  for  those  little  shoes  that  the 
women  here  wear,  and  I'll  buy  some  for  them.  I'll  have 
to  look  around  a  bit  before  I  can  find  things  for  the  boys. 
Bless  their  little  hearts ! 


38  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

The  Astor  House,  Shanghai, 

Sunday,  September  9,  1900. 

Shanghai  is  a  pretty  fine  town,  considering  it  is  far 
enough  around  the  world  for  New  Yorkers  to  walk  over 
it.  I  spent  about  all  of  yesterday  with  D.,  trying  to 
get  in  touch  with  the  situation,  and  to  find  out  what  had 
happened  during  the  month  I  was  at  sea.  He  told  me  all 
about  the  fight  at  Tien  Tsin  and  the  march  to  Peking, 
and  the  saving  of  the  Legation,  and  after  that  about  the 
looting  of  the  cities,  in  which,  it  seems,  everybody  took  a 
hand  and  carried  off  all  that  they  could  carry.  The 
trouble,  so  far  as  fighting  is  concerned,  is  unquestionably 
over,  but  I  am  afraid  I  shall  have  to  go  on  to  Peking. 
Don't  growl  at  this,  for  long  before  you  read  it  I  shall  be 
in  Peking  and  probably  away  again.  I  shall  start  D. 
home  by  Saturday's  steamer,  and  you  will  hear  from  him 
when  he  gets  there.     He  will  send  you  a  roll  of  silk. 

But  I  started  to  tell  you  about  Shanghai.  It's  a  big 
town — the  biggest  foreign  town  in  the  whole  of  the  Far 
East.  Each  of  the  larger  nations  has  a  "  Concession  " 
of  territory,  and  the  people  of  those  nationalities  live  in 
the  houses  built  in  those  Concessions.  The  Astor  House, 
where  I  am  writing,  is  in  the  American  Concession.  I've 
a  big  room  here  and  a  bath.  The  hotel  faces  a  park 
where  there  is  music  every  night  or  so.  Nearly  all  the 
guests  at  the  hotel  are  English,  American,  German,  or 
Russian.  Of  course  the  servants  are  all  Chinese,  but  they 
speak  a  sort  of  English  that  you  can  understand  after  a 
bit.  For  instance,  my  room  is  "  top  side  "  ;  that  is,  it  is  up- 
stairs. If  I  go  anywhere,  I  go  "  Nankin  side,"  or  "  club 
side,"  or  "  French  side,"  or  if  I  go  to  my  room,  I  go 
"  top  side."  If  I  want  anything  I  start  out  with  "  Have 
got?  "  and  if  the  heathen  has  it  he  says  "  Have  got  " ;  if 
he  hasn't,  he  says  "  No  have  got."  If  I  want  him  to  do 
anything,  he  says  "  Can  do  "  or  "  No  can  do,"  and  if  I 
want  to  do  anything  myself,  and  ask  him  about  it,  he 
says  the  same — "  Can  do  "  or  "  No  can  do."  If  I  want  a 
thing  done  as  a  white  man  wants  it,  I  say  "  alle  same 
foreign,"  and  if  I  want  it  Chinese  style,  it's  "  alle  same 
Chinese,"  and  he  shows  a  heathen  pleasure  as  he  yells 
"  Alle  lighte,  can  do." 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  39 

However,  I'm  getting  off  the  subject  again.  I  guess 
I  "  no  can  do "  it.  I  took  tiffin  at  the  Ckib  with  D. 
and  J.  C.  F.,  an  American  who  is  President  of  the 
Nang  Yang  College,  and  the  foreigner  who  is  probably 
closest  to  the  Chinese  of  all  the  foreigners  in  China.  He 
is  a  pretty  nice  fellow.  He  was  formerly  a  missionary, 
and  he  comes  from  Newark,  New  Jersey.  I  guess  you 
have  heard  of  that  town. 

The  club  here  is  like  the  club  in  Yokohama.  It  is  a 
club  of  foreigners.  Any  foreign  resident  can  be  a  mem- 
ber of  it,  and  nearly  all  of  them  are,  with  the  result  that 
when  you  sit  two  minutes  on  the  front  porch  you  are 
bound  to  hear  about  every  modern  language  spoken.  In 
the  afternoon  I  got  a  lot  of  the  papers  and  read  what  had 
happened,  to  supplement  what  D.  had  told  me,  so 
now  I  think  I'm  pretty  well  up  on  the  China  question. 

You  get  around  Shanghai  just  as  you  do  in  the  cities  of 
Japan;  that  is,  they  have  jinrikishas  here.  The  men 
who  draw  them  are,  as  a  rule,  a  great  deal  bigger  than  the 
Japs,  and  they  run  much  faster,  so  that  really  it  is  a  fine 
and  a  quick  way  of  getting  around.  The  money  is  all 
silver,  and  it  is  worth  the  same  as  in  Japan ;  that  is,  one 
of  our  gold  dollars  is  worth  two  of  their  silver  dollars. 
The  stores  are  all  run  by  the  foreigners ;  that  is  to  say, 
the  stores  which  keep  goods  that  the  foreigners  want ;  but 
they  all  have  Chinese  clerks.  The  head  man  in  all  the  stores 
is  the  "  shroff."  The  shroff  (I  don't  think  that  is  spelled 
right)  is  a  man  who  seems  to  be  an  expert  accountant  and 
an  expert  in  money.  He  tests  every  piece  of  money  that 
is  taken  in.  If  you  buy  a  thing  and  pay,  say,  a  dollar  for 
it,  he  takes  the  dollar,  and,  balancing  it  on  his  finger,  he 
hits  it  with  another  dollar  and  listens  to  the  ring.  If  it 
doesn't  suit  him  he  won't  take  the  money,  and  no  amount 
of  argument  will  induce  him  to  do  it.  One  of  the  store- 
keepers with  whom  I  talked  told  me  that  all  this  was 
necessary,  for  the  reason  that  at  least  a  third  of  all  the 
silver  in  circulation  is  bad.  The  Chinese  split  it.  Then 
they  take  out  a  lot  of  the  silver  and  fill  the  hole  left  with 
brass,  and  stick  it  together  again.  Even  at  the  banks  this 
test  is  applied,  and  there,  where  thousands  of  dollars  are 
taken  in  every  day,  you  can  see  what  a  job  it  is.     When 


40  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

a  merchant  has  tested  money  and  found  it  good,  he  puts 
a  stamp  on  it,  so  that  if  he  pays  it  out  and  it  comes  back 
again  he  will  recognize  it  and  won't  be  afraid  to  take  it. 
Here  at  the  Astor  House  there  is  a  notice  reading  some- 
thing like  this :  "  Guests  who  have  their  money  changed 
at  the  office  will  please  see  that  all  their  silver  dollars  have 
our  mark,  '  A.  H.,'  in  order  that  trouble  may  be  avoided 
in  case  any  mistake  has  been  made.  No  dollars  will  be 
exchanged  unless  they  have  our  mark."  Talk  about  un- 
certain currency — if  this  isn't  uncertain,  I  don't  know, 
what  is.  You  feel  like  biting  every  piece  of  money  you 
get,  to  make  sure  that  it  is  good,  and  most  of  it  is  so  dirty 
you  are  afraid  to  bite  it. 

I  cabled  the  office  to-day  that  I  had  arrived,  and  I  sup- 
pose you  had  a  letter  from  Ward,  telling  you  of  that  fact. 
He  promised  to  write  to  you  when  he  got  the  first  word 
from  me. 

But  once  more  I  must  get  back  to  Shanghai.  Yester- 
day afternoon,  after  tiffin  and  after  I  had  had  a  look  at 
the  papers  I  told  you  about,  I  took  a  long  "ricksha  ride 
through  the  district  where  the  Chinese  shops  are.  They 
are  set  right  out  on  the  streets,  like  the  shops  in  Japan, 
and  they  seem  to  have  no  fronts.  The  counters  face  on 
the  sidewalk.  The  particularly  noticeable  feature  about 
them  is  the  astonishing  number  of  clerks.  In  nearly  every 
shop  the  space  behind  the  counter  is  jammed  with  husky 
Chinese — ten,  twelve,  and  fifteen  clerks  to  a  store.  They 
are  all  naked  to  the  waist,  and  when  you  stop  to  buy  the 
whole  force  starts  in  to  sell.  They  go  on  the  principle 
that  it  is  no  trouble  to  show  goods,  and,  if  you  don't  look 
out,  before  you  know  it  you  will  have  the  entire  stock  on 
the  counter  in  front  of  you  and  a  pack  of  Chinese  telling 
you  what  each  thing  costs,  what  any  number  of  things 
cost,  or  what  you  can  have  the  whole  store  for.  These 
shops  sell  all  classes  of  goods,  from  silks  up  or  down. 
After  going  through  some  of  the  stores  I  struck  some  of 
the  residence  streets  and  took  a  look  at  the  houses.  They 
are  pretty  fine  houses,  too.  Most  of  them  are  made  of 
either  brick  or  stone,  and  all  of  them  look  comfortable. 
I  spent  the  evening  at  the  hotel,  talking  over  the  happen- 
ings of  the  month  with  D. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  41 

There  is  a  day's  record,  and  I'll  let  it  go  at  that.  I'll 
write  again  to-morrow,  of  course. 

The  Astor  House,  Shanghai, 

Monday,  September  lo,  1900. 

Shanghai  seems  to  be  a  warm  sort  of  a  town,  as  well 
as  a  fine  one.  It  is  hot  as  mustard  here  to-day.  Every- 
body is  in  white  clothes  except  your  humble  servant,  and 
if  it  wasn't  so  near  the  season  for  winter  I  think  he  would 
go  out  and  buy  him  some.  As  it  is,  I  guess  he'll  worry 
along  with  what  he  has. 

There  wasn't  much  to  do  yesterday,  so  after  breakfast 
D.  and  I  and  Dr.  McW.  and  Dr.  S.,  whom  I  have 
mentioned  in  my  letters  to  you  written  aboard  the 
Peking,  went  out  to  see  one  of  the  big  wholesale  silk 
houses.  As  you  of  course  know,  silk  is  the  chief 
thing  that  China  sends  out  to  the  rest  of  the  world.  The 
silk  is  all  hand-made,  and  it  is,  I  think,  the  best  in  the 
world.  This  place  we  visited  is  on  the  Nanking  road,  not 
far  from  the  hotel.  It  is  a  Chinese  place,  and  in  four 
hours  I  think  I  must  have  handled  a  great  many  thousands 
of  dollars'  worth  of  silk.  The  Chinese  merchant  who  kept 
the  store  was  surrounded  by  clerks,  and  three  clerks  just 
busied  themselves  trotting  out  silks  of  all  qualities,  all  col- 
ors, and  all  styles.  When  we  went  in  the  merchant  asked 
us  what  we  wanted  to  see,  and  we  began  modestly  with  a 
request  to  see  some  pajama  silk  "  alle  same  like  foreigner 
make  night-clothes  of."  "  Have  got,"  said  he.  Now, 
maybe  you  think  he  hadn't !  In  less  time  than  it  takes  to 
tell  it  we  were  almost  drowned  in  rolls  of  pajama  silk, 
from  the  quality  coarse  to  the  quality  superfine. 

Let  me  digress  here  a  moment  to  tell  you  one 
of  the  things  about  the  heathen  Chinee  that  attracted 
my  attention.  It  was  his  finger  nails,  or,  I  might  more 
properly  say,  they  were  his  finger  nails.  I  think  they 
would  none  of  them  measure  less  than  three  inches  long, 
from  the  tip  of  the  fingers  out.  I  am  speaking  now  of  the 
boss  Chinaman.  His  finger  nails  were  simply  marvels. 
They  were  highly  polished.  How  he  kept  from  breaking 
them  I  haven't  the  remotest  idea,  but  he  did,  and  seemed 
to  handle  them  with  all  the  skill  that  one  of  those  misfit 


42  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

doctors  on  the  boat  used  to  show  m  handling  a  knife  when 
eating.  The  numerous  clerks  who  went  at  the  beck  of 
this  boss  Chinamen  all  had  long  nails,  too,  but  theirs 
didn't  average  much  over  an  inch  beyond  the  tips  of  the 
fingers.  I  wanted  to  ask  them  what  the  nails  were  used 
for,  but  then  I  thought  better  of  it. 

Now,  to  get  back  to  the  silks.  I  could  not  but  marvel 
at  their  cheapness.  The  most  expensive  I  saw  was  $40  a 
roll.  A  roll  contains  twenty  yards,  and  the  $40,  of  course, 
was  Mexican  money,  so  that  was  only  $20  of  our  money. 
A  dollar  a  yard  for  silk  that  could  not  be  bought  in  the 
United  States  under  $4  or  $5  a  yard,  if  it  could  be  bought 
at  all !  It  ran  from  that  price  all  the  way  down  to  $7.50 
a  roll, — that  is,  $3.75  in  our  money, — and  each  roll  liad 
from  eighteen  to  twenty  yards  in  it.  There  were  silks 
so  light  you  could  hardly  feel  that  you  had  anything  in 
your  hand  when  you  were  handling  them,  and  silks  as 
heavy  as  a  piece  of  thick  woolen  goods,  and  all  of  them 
of  astonishing  strength.  I  would  pick  up  a  piece  of  light 
stuff  and  ask  the  price  of  it.  The  heathen  with  the  long 
finger  nails  might  say,  "  Nine  dollar  roll."  Then  with  all 
the  air  of  an  expert  in  silk  I  would  say,  "  Too  much." 
He  would  shake  his  head  and  say,  "  Quality  belly  good. 
No  can  tear.  Try."  Then  I'd  get  hold  of  the  edge  of 
that  piece  of  silk,  and  while  the  heathen  grinned  I'd  put 
forth  every  ounce  of  strength  I  had  and  try  to  rip  it, 
without  succeeding  even  in  stretching  the  threads  or 
spreading  the  weave.  All  real  Chinese  silk  is  hand-made, 
and  that  is  the  chief  difference  between  our  silk  and  China 
silk.  Our  silk  is  all  machine-made,  and  this  suggests  an 
idea,  too. 

Everybody,  pretty  nearly,  has  been  blaming  the  mis- 
sionaries for  the  hatred  of  the  "  foreign  devils  "  displayed 
by  the  Chinese.  Is  occurs  to  me  right  here  that  the  in- 
troduction of  machinery  and  railroads  probably  has  as 
much,  or  more,  to  do  with  the  trouble  as  the  missionaries 
could  possibly  have.  Just  think  of  it  a  minute.  Every- 
thing in  China  has  been  done  by  hand.  All  the  carrying 
has  been  so  done,  as  well  as  all  the  manufacturing.  Now, 
the  foreigners  come  in  and  introduce  railroads.  Every 
pound  of  freight  that  these  railroads  carry  was  formerly 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  43 

carried  by  the  Chinese  coolies.  One  railroad  takes  the 
place  of  a  thousand  or  ten  thousand  coolies,  who  have, 
like  their  ancestors  for  generations,  been  carrying  freight 
for  a  living.  These  coolies  are  thrown  out  of  employ- 
ment. Every  railroad  is  carrying  passengers  and  every 
passenger  carried  had  formerly  to  ride  in  hand-drawn 
contrivances  or  was  carried  by  coolies.  So  the  railroads 
drive  out  of  business  all  the  Chinese  in  the  passenger  or 
freight-carrying  business.  The  Chinese  are  taught  to  do 
one  thing.  The  Chinese  who  are  taught  to  carry  don't 
know  how  to  do  anything  else.  The  result  is  that  they 
become  the  mortal  enemies  of  the  '*  foreign  devil  "  who 
introduced  the  thing  that  put  them  out  of  business.  I 
guess,  if  the  truth  were  known,  it  is  the  improvements  in 
the  nature  of  labor-saving  inventions  rather  than  the  mis- 
sionaries that  have  aroused  the  hatred  of  the  Chinese.  If 
that  is  the  case,  just  think  what  is  in  prospect.  Take  the 
silk  industry  alone,  with  its  millions  upon  millions  of 
workers.  Unquestionably,  machines  for  making  silk  will 
be  introduced  here.  They  are  bound  to  be,  and  when 
they  are,  then  millions  of  the  millions  who  know  nothing 
but  silk  making  will  be  out  of  work.  Then  the  hatred  of 
the  foreign  devil  will  be  tenfold.  It  is  not  so  hard  to  see 
the  cause  of  trouble  when  you  hunt  for  it,  is  it  ? 

I  said  something  about  railroads  and  passengers. 
There  are  two  kinds  of  conveyances  in  use  here  for  the 
carrying  of  passengers  that  I  had  forgotten  to  tell  you 
about.  One  is  the  sedan  chair.  This  is  a  box  with  a  seat 
in  it.  It  has  a  cover,  and  the  sides  are  made  of  wire 
netting,  like  our  mosquito  netting.  To  each  side  of  the 
chair  is  attached  a  long  pole,  and  when  the  passenger  gets 
in  and  the  box  is  shut  up,  coolies  lift  the  ends  of  the  poles 
and  deposit  them  on  their  shoulders  and  walk  ofif  with 
them.  I  haven't  tried  a  chair  ride  yet.  I  understand 
that  I'll  have  a  whole  stomachful  of  it  when  I  go  north, 
so  I'm  going  to  wait  till  I  have  to.  It  surely  doesn't  look 
comfortable. 

The  other  means  of  getting  around  is  by  wheelbarrow. 
Now  don't  laugh,  for  wheelbarrow  locomotion  is  very 
popular  here.  The  barrow  has  a  wheel  much  bigger  than 
the  wheelbarrows  we  sec  at  home.    It  is  set  in  the  middle 


44  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

of  the  carrier,  instead  of  at  one  end.  Each  barrow  is 
built  to  hold  four  passengers,  and  you  sit  on  either  side  of 
the  wheel  while  the  coolie  pushes  you  along.  As  there  is 
only  one  wheel  to  a  barrow  it's  hard  luck  for  the  coolie 
when  he  has  to  wheel  a  one-sided  load.  If  he  has  two 
passengers,  one  on  a  side,  he  has  it  easier,  for  one  balances 
the  other,  and  all  that  he  has  to  do  is  to  push.  You 
can't  walk  half  a  block  without  seeing  three  or  four  of 
these  contrivances.  Here  in  Shanghai  they  are  used 
almost  exclusively  by  the  Chinese,  but  in  other  ports 
where  there  are  no  'rickshas  and  sedan  chairs  are  few, 
everybody  uses  them,  they  say.  I  sincerely  trust  that  I 
don't  strike  any  of  the  places,  for  I  can't  imagine  a  more 
uncomfortable-looking  vehicle  of  transportation.  Along- 
side of  them  the  sedan  chair  is  not  in  it. 

But  let  me  see :  I  left  you  in  the  silk  store,  didn't  I  ? 
Well,  I'm  not  expert  enough  in  the  subject  of  silk  to  tell 
you  much  more  about  what  I  saw  than  I  have  already 
done.  I  didn't  buy  any,  but  I  certain  sure  am  going  to 
buy  a  lot  before  I  come  home,  and  if  I  don't  have  all  my 
relations  clothed  in  silk  before  I  get  through  with  it,  it 
will  be  because  they  won't  wear  the  stuff. 

Sunday  afternoon  I  took  a  ride  out  to  a  place  called  the 
Bubbling  Well,  because  there  is  a  spring  there  that  bub- 
bles up  and  goes  back  again,  and  then  I  learned  the  reason 
why  the  allied  forces  did  not  catch  the  Emperor  and 
Empress  Dowager  and  all  the  Princes  when  they  got 
to  Peking.  That  information  I  cabled  to  The  Sun,  and 
you  of  course  have  seen  it. 

The  Astor  House,  Shanghai, 

September  ii,  1900. 
Still  at  Shanghai  and  likely  to  stay  here  until  Sunday, 
for  there  is  no  boat  going  north  so  far  as  I  can  find  out, 
and  walking  is  bad.  I'm  having  plenty  to  do,  never- 
theless, getting  in  full  touch  with  the  situation  and  learn- 
ing these  dem  Chinese  names,  both  of  towns  and  of  men. 
There's  Ching  and  Chang  and  Chung  and  Li  and  Lo  and 
Lung  and  Foo  Chow  and  Go  Chow  and  Ku  Chow  and  A 
Chow,  and  so  on,  an  assortment  that  is  guaranteed  to 
discourage  a  Job,  and  to  drive  any  mortal  less  favored. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  45 

witH  patience  than  that  patriarch  into  doldrums  too  awful 
to  describe.  But  I'm  getting  on,  thank  you,  and  if  I 
don't  chew  up  and  spit  out  the  whole  English  language 
in  chunks  by  the  time  I  get  back,  to  say  nothing  of  ap- 
pearing in  a  pea-green  jacket  and  wide  pantalets,  it  won't 
be  for  want  of  education  of  the  Chinese  order.  I  had  a 
little  spare  time  yesterday,  and  I  put  it  in  with  a  visit  to 
the  place  called  here  the  Mixed  Courts. 

I  have  already  told  you  about  the  various  foreign  con- 
cessions that  make  up  the  city  of  Shanghai.  Well,  these 
places  are  governed  by  a  Council  and  are  policed  by 
natives  and  by  Sikhs.  The  Sikhs  are  from  India.  They 
are  usually  tremendously  tall,  black  as  coal,  and  be- 
whiskered.  They  wear  a  headgear  that  is  folded  in  a 
manner  that  cannot  fail  to  excite  admiration  no  less  than 
wonder.  They  give  you  the  impression  that  they  have 
taken  their  turkey-red  tablecloths,  made  a  double 
wrap  with  them  around  their  heads,  and  then  twisted  in 
the  loose  ends.  However,  I  did  not  start  in  to  tell  you 
about  the  police  system  of  Shanghai,  but  about  the  Mixed 
Courts.  Well,  to  return  to  the  subject  matter  of  this 
essay,  all  the  prisoners  arrested  by  the  Municipal  Police 
in  the  American  and  English  Concessions  are  taken  to  the 
Mixed  Courts  to  be  tried,  that  is,  all  the  native  prisoners. 
The  court  is  presided  over  by  a  Chinese  Judge,  and  either 
an  Englishman  or  an  American  acts  with  him.  They  try 
the  prisoners  in  the  morning  and  punish  them  in  the  after- 
noon. The  punishment  is  inflicted  with  a  bamboo.  They 
get  so  many  blows  from  the  bamboo  on  their  bare  skins. 
Usually  the  greatest  number  inflicted  is  i,ooo,  and  they 
run  all  the  way  down  to  twenty-five.  When  the  criminal 
is  very  bad,  and  has  been  around  robbing  people  and 
assaulting  them,  he  is  very  likely  to  get  his  thousand  blows 
and  then  to  be  taken  out  and  put  in  a  cage  with  his  neck 
through  a  round  hole  in  the  top.  He  is  then  stood  out 
near  the  gates  of  the  city  for  all  the  people  to  see.  He 
gets  neither  food  nor  drink.  The  bottom  of  the  cage  is 
full  of  stones,  and  he  stands  on  these.  Each  day  a  stone 
is  taken  away,  and  each  day  he  hangs  more  by  the  neck 
until  finally  he  strangles  to  death.  That's  pretty  horrible, 
isn't  it?     But  it  may  be  necessary  with  people  of  the 


46  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

character  of  these.  Whenever  an  uprising  is  threatened 
two  or  three  men  are  treated  in  this  fashion,  and  that  ends 
the  uprising,  P.  D.  Q. 

There  were  no  very  bad  men  to  be  dealt  with  Tuesday, 
and  the  worst  one  got  only  400  blows.  The  officers  of  the 
court  were  the  Judge,  who  wore  a  hat  shaped  like  a  cone, 
with  red  tassels  flowing  down  the  side,  and  beside  him  a 
man  who  held  his  pipe  for  him,  and  every  moment  or 
two  reached  over  the  stem  and  stuck  it  in  the  Judge's 
mouth ;  on  the  other  side  was  another  man  who 
held  a  teapot  ready.  Every  time  the  Judge  wanted  a 
drink  he  poured  a  cup  of  tea  for  him.  In  front  of  the 
bench  and  on  the  other  side  were  rows  of  officials.  Those 
nearest  the  Judge  were  dressed  in  light  pajamas  and  had 
cone  hats.  The  ones  farthest  away  were  dressed  in  blue 
pajamas  and  wore  caps  exactly  like  the  pictured  dunce- 
cap,  with  a  rooster  feather  coming  out  of  the  top.  They 
were  the  runners  for  the  court.  Outside  the  courtroom 
itself,  and  directly  in  front  of  the  door,  stood  the  execu- 
tioners, with  their  bamboos.  They  were  dressed  in  white 
from  head  to  foot  and  had  straw  hats  built  cone-shaped 
to  a  peak  at  the  top.  Their  weapons  were  rods  of  bam- 
boo, about  three  feet  long,  an  inch  and  a  half  wide,  and  an 
eighth  of  an  inch  thick.  The  courtyard  of  the  place  ex- 
tended out  to  the  open  street,  and  on  either  side,  in  heavy 
barred  cages,  were  the  prisoners. 

When  the  court  was  ready  for  business  the  name  of  a 
prisoner  was  called  and  he  came  running  in.  He  dropped 
on  his  knees  before  the  Judge  and  kowtowed,  that  is, 
bumped  his  head  on  the  floor  two  or  three  times.  Then 
the  Judge  talked  at  him  and  he  tried  to  talk  at  the  Judge. 
This  lasted  something  like  fifty  seconds,  when  one  of  the 
court  officers  nearest  grabbed  the  unfortunate's  pigtail, 
pulled  him  up,  twisted  him  around,  and  dragged  him  out 
to  where  the  executioner  was  standing.  On  his  way  the 
unfortunate  was  loosening  his  trousers,  and  they  fell  just 
as  he  reached  a  spot  in  front  of  the  door  where  there  was 
a  little  mat,  and  where  the  executioners  were.  Down  he 
went  on  his  face  on  the  mat.  One  man  with  a  duncecap 
and  rooster  feather  sat  on  his  head  and  shoulders,  and 
another  of  the  same  kind  sat  on  his  feet.    An  executioner 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  47 

dropped  on  one  knee.  His  bamboo  had  been  dipped  in 
alum  to  make  it  stick  and  sting,  and  he  started  in  welting 
the  prisoner  just  about  as  fast  as  he  could  count. 

This  prisoner  was  to  get  400  blows.  The  executioner 
gave  him  one  hundred  and  then  another  executioner  took 
the  rod  and  told  off  another  hundred.  Then  the  first 
tackled  it  again,  and  laid  on  a  third  hundred,  when  the 
second  man  took  hold  and  completed  the  job.  The 
moment  the  first  blow  was  struck  the  victim  began  yelling, 
and  he  never  let  up  until  the  job  was  done.  When  his 
yells  became  too  bad  the  man  sitting  on  his  head  grabbed 
his  queue  and  twisted  it  around  and  into  his  mouth  to  gag 
him.  After  the  beating  the  victim  was  pulled  up  by  his 
queue  and  yanked  back  again  before  the  Judge,  where  he 
kowtowed  some  more  and  promised  to  be  good. 
Then  he  was  yanked  off,  still  by  the  hair  handle,  to 
serve  a  term  in  jail.  I  really  never  realized  what  a  valu- 
able adjunct  a  queue  was  until  I  saw  it  used  to  handle 
men. 

Fifteen  or  twenty  prisoners  were  spanked.  None  of 
them  got  so  many  blows  as  the  first,  however.  Then 
came  along  two  women.  The  same  process  was 
gone  through  with  before  the  Judge.  They  were  accused 
of  abducting  a  girl  14  years  old.  One  of  them  was 
sentenced  to  a  bambooing  and  the  other  to  a  mouth- 
slapping.  The  latter  is  considered  the  worst  and  most 
degrading  punishment  that  can  be  inflicted.  The  woman 
who  was  bambooed  was  seized  by  both  arms,  a  man  on 
each  side  of  her,  and  the  arms  were  drawn  tight  across 
her  breast.  That  made  her  dress  fit  her  tight  in  the  back, 
and  the  bamboo  was  laid  on  across  the  shoulders  good 
and  hard  while  she  screamed.  Then  the  woman  who  was 
to  have  her  mouth  slapped  was  hauled  out.  She  was 
seized  in  the  same  way.  The  executioner  picked  up  a 
piece  of  sole-leather  and  begun  first  on  one  side.  He 
slapped  her  mouth  one  hundred  times.  The  leather  was 
cut  the  shape  of  the  sole  of  a  slipper  and  was  about  the 
same  size.  The  second  executioner  took  the  weapon 
when  the  first  had  finished  and  he  slapped  the  other  side 
of  her  mouth  one  hundred  times.  When  they  were 
through  the  woman's  face  looked  like  the  map  of  Ireland. 


48  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

She  kept  up  a  continual  screaming  while  the  affair  was 
going  on,  and  from  her  general  manner  I'm  satisfied  she 
will  not  abduct  any  more  Chinese  girls,  for  a  while,  at 
least. 

Oh,  before  I  close  this  letter  I  want  to  tell  you  about 
some  of  the  missionaries  I  have  seen.  They  have  been 
here  so  long  that  they  braid  their  hair  into  pigtails,  shav- 
ing the  rest  of  the  head  like  the  Chinese,  and  they  wear 
Chinese  clothes.  Maybe  I'm  wrong,  but  it  seems  to  me 
that  this  is  just  a  bit  too  far  to  go  to  save  the  heathen. 

Well,  I'll  close  the  record  of  another  day,  and  as  the 
poet  says, 

"  My  pen  is  poor. 
My  ink  is  pale, 
My  love  for  you 
Will  never  fail." 

The  Astor  House,  Shanghai, 

Thursday,  September  13,  1900. 

I  had  hoped  to  be  away  from  Shanghai  before  to-day 
and  on  my  way  northward  toward  Peking,  but  steamers 
are  very  irregular,  and  I  shall  have  to  wait  my  chance. 
Li  Hung  Chang  starts  north  in  the  morning  in  a  steamer 
of  the  China  Merchant  Transportation  Company,  and  I 
thought  it  possible  that  I  might  get  away  with  him,  but 
he  has  more  than  300  persons  in  his  suite,  including  some 
150  servants,  and  they  will  crowd  the  steamer.  He  won't 
get  up,  however,  much  before  I  do. 

D.  and  I  went  out  to  the  Nang  Yang  College  to-day, 
to  have  tiffin  with  Mr.  F.  I  was  astounded  at  the  fine 
buildings  they  have  here.  The  college  is  a  Chinese  insti- 
tution, supported  by  the  Government,  but  the  President  is 
an  American,  as  I  think  I  have  told  you.  I  met  his 
wife,  who  had  been  out  here  with  him  for  thirteen 
years.  She  assured  me  that  she  liked  China,  and  that 
she  had  been  here  so  long  that  now  when  she  visits  the 
United  States  she  is  always  glad  to  start  back.  Did  you 
ever  hear  of  such  contrariness?  I  inclose  you  a  picture 
of  the  college  and  another  of  F.'s  home. 

Incidentally  I  can  give  you  some  idea  of  the  cost  of 
houses  here.  F.'s  mansion  cost  6,000  taels,  or  about 
$4,000  gold,  and  I  use  the  word  "  mansion  "  advisedly. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  49 

The  college  buildings,  which  cost  not  more  than  $75,000 
gold,  could  not  be  built  in  the  United  States  for  less  than 
$500,000. 

After  we  left  the  college  we  drove  ofif  to  the  walled 
city  of  Shanghai,  that  is,  the  native  city.  It  was  through 
a  country  nearly  as  full  of  burying-grounds  as  was  Naga- 
saki, about  which  I  have  told  you,  only  here  the  graves  are 
not  in  burying-grounds,  but  in  open  fields.  When  a 
Chinaman  dies  his  body  is  placed  in  a  thick  wooden  casket 
and  put  out  in  the  field  to  await  the  auspicious  time. 
That  time  is  told  by  some  of  the  Voodoo-men  who  infest 
China  and  are  believed  in  by  the  Chinese.  They  read 
the  heavens  and  the  stars,  and  they  watch  until  they  catch 
the  particular  star  that  the  dead  man  was  born  under, 
right  over  the  box.  It  may  be  weeks  or  months,  or  a 
year  or  more,  but  the  coffin  stays  where  it  was  put  until 
the  auspicious  time  arrives,  and  then  the  Voodoo-man 
lets  the  relatives  know.  They  go  out,  and,  instead  of 
digging  a  hole  and  putting  the  coffin  in  it,  they  heap  the 
earth  up  on  the  coffin  and  make  a  mound.  Then  they 
bring  along  a  trunk  made  of  paper  and  full  of  paper 
clothes  that  the  dead  man  is  supposed  to  wear  in  heaven, 
and  a  whole  bunch  of  paper  money  with  which  he  can 
pay  his  way  in  the  Celestial  City.  The  money  is  made 
in  the  shape  of  boats,  so  that  it  will  float,  and  the  outside 
is  covered  with  silver  paper.  Besides  the  money  and 
clothes  packages  of  food  are  brought  for  the  dead  man, 
and  everything  is  put  on  the  grave  and  burned.  After  that 
the  sorrowing  relatives  are  satisfied  that  all  has  been  done 
that  can  be  done,  and  they  go  about  their  business. 

We  went  into  the  native  city  of  Shanghai  by  the  West 
Gate,  and  we  walked  through  to  the  East  Gate.  You 
must  know  that  these  are  real  gates,  not  joke  gates. 
They  are  closed  every  night  at  9  o'clock,  and  if  anybody 
gets  shut  out  he  has  to  stay  out.  The  wall  around  the 
city  is  a  hundred  or  more  years  old,  and  is  more  than 
twenty  feet  high.  The  gates  are  made  of  heavy  wood. 
They  are  iron-bound,  and  are  about  as  formidable  as 
gates  could  well  be. 

The  walk  through  the  native  city  was  curious  indeed. 
The  streets  were  so  narrow  that,  if  you  stood  in  the 


50  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

middle  and  stretched  out  your  hands,  you  could  touch 
the  buildings  on  either  side.  They  were  lined  with  small 
shops  from  end  to  end — shops  where  everything  under 
the  sun  was  sold.  In  some  of  the  shops  manufacturing 
was  going  on.  I  saw  men  and  girls  making  silk  and 
other  things.  We  visited  the  Yamen  in  the  city.  That 
is  the  official  residence  of  the  highest  official,  whoever  he 
may  be,  and  we  had  tea  there. 

When  F.  had  finished  his  business,  sedan-chairs 
were  called  and  we  all  went  out  of  the  city  in  style  in 
these  chairs,  carried  on  the  shoulders  of  coolies.  The 
ride  was  not  an  uncomfortable  one,  either,  I  can  tell  you. 
It  was  like  gliding  through  the  air.  There  were  no 
rough  stones  to  shake  you  up.  When  I  got  out  I  said 
to  the  other  fellows  that  there  was  only  one  thing  more 
needed  to  make  me  a  thorough  Chinaman,  and  that  was  a 
ride  in  a  wheelbarrow.  I  suppose  that  I  shall  get  that 
before  long. 

I  asked  about  the  narrowness  of  the  streets  in  the 
native  city,  and  they  told  me  that  as  there  was  no  wagon 
traffic  the  streets  were  wide  enough  for  all  purposes  to 
which  they  were  put,  and,  by  having  them  narrow  and 
almost  covered  as  they  were,  the  summer  sun  was  shut 
out  and  the  city  w^as  cooler.  You  see,  these  people  don't 
know  anything  at  all  about  the  value  of  sunlight  and 
air. 

Back  at  F.'s  office  I  got  a  little  box  of  tea  which 
D.  has  kindly  agreed  to  take  home  to  you.  Don't 
be  afraid  of  it.  It  is  not  like  the  tea  that  you  buy  at 
Wohltman's.  It  is  worth  almost  its  weight  in  gold,  some- 
thing like  $i6  a  pound.  It  is  the  next  best  tea  that  is 
grown,  and  only  the  wealthiest  people  drink  it  here. 
None  of  it  ever  gets  away  from  China.  It  only  requires 
a  few  sprigs  of  it  to  make  a  fine  cup  of  tea.  It  is  not 
like  the  teaspoonful  to  a  cup  stuff.  JMake  some  tea  for 
yourself  and  think  of  me. 

Shanghai,  Friday,  September  14,  1900. 
Still  in  Shanghai,  but  expecting  to  be  away  any  day 
now,  Peking-ward.     I  have  a  ticket  for  a  steamer,  the 
Woo  Sling,  which  is  supposed  to  leave  at  6  o'clock  in  the 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  51 

morning,  but  a  typhoon  is  raging  outside  the  river,  and 
ships  never  venture  out  of  the  harbor  until  those  things 
are  over.     They  are  hke  the  West  Indian  hurricanes. 

I've  had  another  busy  day  of  it.  As  the  mission  north 
is  not  a  war  correspondent's  job,  but  rather  a  society 
function,  I  found  that  it  was  necessary  to  procure  a 
dress-suit,  so  this  morning  I  went  out  and  was  measured 
for  one  and  for  a  Tuxedo  coat.  It  will  take  eight  days 
to  have  these  made  and  the  tailors  will  ship  them  north 
after  me.  After  that  I  purchased  a  lot  of  things  that  I 
found  I  would  need,  and  then  I  got  me  back  to  the  hotel 
and  started  in  to  write  letters.  I  wrote  to  H.  R.  Cham- 
berlin  in  London,  to  Mr.  Lord  and  to  Mr.  Ward, 
and  to  Mother  and  Father  and  G.  Wasn't  that  pretty 
good  for  one  batch?  You  see,  I  hadn't  written  to  a  soul 
since  I  boarded  the  steamer  in  San  Francisco  except  to 
you. 

It  is  night  now,  and  I  am  writing  in  my  room  in  the 
Astor  House.  The  wind  is  whistling  outside  like  a  good 
fellow.  I  can't  help  wishing  you  were  here  with  me 
and  that  we  could  have  just  one  good  talk  together;  and 
I  want  to  see  the  babies,  too,  bless  them  all.  Of  course 
the  two  girls  and  W.  are  going  to  school  every  day. 
I  wonder  if  W.  is  remembering  what  his  papa  told 
him  before  he  came  away,  and  is  getting  dressed  first 
every  morning  without  any  growling  and  grumbling, 
and  I  wonder  if  C.  is  teasing  his  mamma  as  he  used 
to  do,  or  if  he  is  the  good  little  boy  that  he  promised  to 
be.  Of  course  the  young  ladies  are  models,  and  are 
helping  their  mother.  Since  the  fighting  is  all  over 
here  you  haven't  the  remotest  cause  to  worry  about  me. 
I'm  safe  and  snug  as  a  bug  in  a  rug.  All  I  want  is  my 
family. 

The  Astor  House,  Shanghai,  eighth  moon,  twenty- 
second  day,  26th  year,  H.  I.  M.  Kuang 
Hsu,  Son  of  Heaven,  Bedfellow  of  the  Moon, 
Room-mate  of  the  Stars — the  same  being,  in  plain 
English,  Saturday,  September  15,  1900. 

I'm  top  side  now,  as  they  say  out  here,  being  upstairs 
in  my  room.     A  China  boy  has  just  this  moment  knocked 


62  ORDEREDTOCHINA 

on  the  door  and  announced,  "  One  piece  man,  office  side, 
want  see  Kam-pin-ling.  Can  have  ?  "  To  which  I  repHed, 
"  Can  get  one  piece  man  top  side  ?  "  and  he  retorted,  "  Can 
get."  Even  now  I  reaHze  that  he  "  have  got,"  for  I  hear 
the  stranger's  footsteps  in  the  hall. 

One  hour  later,  on  the  twenty-second  day  of  the  eighth 
moon. 

It  was  F.,  about  whom  I  have  written  you.  He 
came  to  tell  me  that  his  Imperial  Majesty,  the  Son  of 
Heaven,  etc.,  had  issued  an  edict  commanding  the  ex- 
termination of  all  the  Boxers  in  China,  which,  I  may  re- 
mark, is  important  if  true,  although  just  at  present  it 
must  be  admitted  the  Son  of  Heaven  is,  to  use  an 
Americanism,  slightly  on  the  hog.  F.,  though,  is 
all  right,  and  is  keeping  me  posted  on  the  Chinese  end 
of  about  everything  that  is  going  on.  His  untimely 
arrival  to-day,  however,  has  made  me  miss  the  mail,  and 
this  letter  will  be  the  first  of  the  bunch  that  you  get  on  the 
next  steamer,  instead  of  the  last  of  the  bunch  that  went 
by  to-day's  steamer,  as  I  intended  it  should  be. 

I  think  I  told  you  in  my  letter  yesterday  that  I  ex- 
pected to  sail  this  morning  for  Tien  Tsin  and  Peking, 
This  letter  is  evidence  that  I  did  not.  I  was  to  have 
gone  on  the  Woo  Sung,  and  she  started  at  6  o'clock,  but 
the  typhoon  is  still  raging  outside  and  she  will  anchor 
at  the  mouth  of  the  river.  She  will  stay  there,  proba- 
bly, two  or  three  days,  and  rather  than  experience  that 
wait,  living  on  Chinese  chow,  I  let  her  go  and  will  stay 
here  until  the  typoon  is  over,  going  north  when  I  can 
catch  a  steamer.  There  is  a  decent  hotel  here,  at  least, 
and  I  don't  believe  in  hunting  any  more  hardship  than 
necessary.  D.  is  going  home  on  the  American  Maru, 
which  is  supposed  to  sail  at  noon,  and  he  is  out 
hunting  her  now.  I  don't  believe  she  will  go,  on  account 
of  the  weather.  It  is  simply  beastly.  The  rain  is  com- 
ing down  in  torrents  and  the  wind  is  blowing  a  gale. 

All  the  reports  I  have  heard  from  the  north,  so  far,  are 
that  things  are  quieting  down  there  wonderfully,  and 
that  everything  is  shaping  itself  for  a  quick  peace  nego- 
tiation. I  sincerely  trust  that  the  thing  will  be  done 
quickly,  for  the  sooner  it  is  over,  of  course,  the  sooner  I 


ORDERED    TO    CHIN  A  53 

will  be  homeward  bound.  All  the  news  from  Peking, 
however,  is  still  seven  days  old.  It  takes  seven  days  for 
stuff  to  come  here  on  account  of  the  rush  of  Government 
business  on  the  telegraph  line,  which,  by  the  way,  is 
another  reason  why  I  am  not  so  anxious  to  hurry  north. 
With  seven  days'  delay  on  everything,  I  can  temporarily 
be  of  more  use  here. 

D.  has  just  come  in  with  the  news  that  the  American 
Mam  won't  sail  until  Sunday,  so  I  may  get  this  letter  off 
on  her  yet,  and  I'll  hustle  it  through.  As  I'm  tied  up 
in  the  hotel  here,  there  is  not  much  to  say  except  that 
I'm  well  and  happy,  save  for  loneliness.  I  don't  wish 
you  any  hard  luck,  but  I  can't  help  wishing  you  were 
here  with  me.  However,  there  is  mighty  little  use  wish- 
ing for  the  impossible,  and  I'll  just  content  myself  with 
saying  that  the  longer  I'm  away  the  more  I  miss  you. 
There,  isn't  that  well  said?     Good-bye,  until  to-morrow. 

The  Astor  House,  Shanghai,  Twenty-third  day, 
eighth  moon,  26th  year  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu, 
Sunday,  September  16,  1900. 

This  Chinese  calendar  is  great,  isn't  it?  All  it  is  neces- 
sary to  do  is  to  keep  track  of  the  moon.  Every  time  you 
get  a  new  moon  you  start  fresh.  The  lucky  day  of  the 
year  is  the  twenty-first  day  of  the  eighth  moon,  according 
to  Chinese  superstition.  That's  the  day  Li  Hung  Chang 
started  from  here  to  go  north  on  his  peace  mission.  He 
started  in  the  face  of  a  typhoon,  and  I  wondered  at  the 
time  why  he  did  it.  The  reason  is  that  it  was  his  lucky 
day,  and  he  wouldn't  have  missed  it  for  anything. 

It  is  still  raining  and  the  weather  is  as  beastly  as  it 
can  be.  A  steamer  got  in  from  England  this  morning, 
and  the  hotel,  which  has  been  gradually  emptying  since 
I  came,  has  filled  up  again  to  the  overflow  point.  D. 
got  away  this  afternoon.  I'efore  he  left  he  said  that  one 
of  the  first  things  he  would  do  when  he  reached  the 
States  was  to  call  on  you  and  tell  you  how  comfortably  he 
left  me.     I  hope  he  brings  you  round  a  nice  roll  of  silk. 

I  had  a  long  talk  this  morning  with  John  Goodnow, 
the  American  Consul  here,  who  appears  to  be  a  pretty 
clever  sort  of  a  citizen.     The  English  hate  him  because 


64  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

he  is  an  American  and  always  sticks  up  for  the  Americans 
here ;  also,  because  he  has  been  the  most  successful  of  all 
the  Consuls  during  the  trouble.  The  English  are  cads, 
chiefly,  and  they  can't  stand  seeing  the  men,  particularly 
the  officials,  of  any  other  country  successful.  They 
think  that  they  themselves  are  about  all  there  is  of  the 
civilized  world  and  they  want  everybody  else  to  think  so, 
and  are  unhappy  if  they  can't  have  it  so. 

I  am  making  a  few  very  good  acquaintances.  I  have 
already  told  you  of  some  of  them.  Another  is  J.  F. 
B.,  the  correspondent  of  The  Herald  and  of  Har- 
per's Weekly.  He  was  here  during  all  the  row  and 
marched  with  the  troops  to  Tien  Tsin  and  Peking.  He 
is  going  to  Japan  from  here.  He  has  been  away  from 
home  five  years,  and  of  course  is  very  anxious  to  get 
back,  but  he  can't  go  until  all  the  trouble  is  settled.  He 
will  probably  go  back  to  Peking  from  Japan. 

By  the  way,  I  have  a  piece  of  loot.  It  is  a  dragon  tile 
from  the  pottery  inside  the  wall  of  the  Forbidden  City. 
It  is  a  nice  piece  of  work,  with  a  first-rate  dragon  on  it. 
D.  had  three  pieces  and  he  gave  me  this  one. 
Mounted,  it  will  look  quite  fine.  I  am  still  undecided 
when  I  shall  start  north,  and  I  don't  know  yet  when  a 
boat  is  going.  You  see,  since  the  disturbance  the  boats 
are  not  running  regularly.  They  will  get  back  into  shape 
quickly,  though,  I  think. 

The  Astor  House,   Shanghai,  Twenty-fourth  day, 

eighth    moon,    26th    year,  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu, 

being  Monday,  the  seventeenth  day  of  September, 

1900. 

The  typhoon  is  still  typhooning  and  it  is  a  nasty  rainy 

blustering    day — one    of    those    days    that    make    you 

down  in  the  mouth  and  low-spirited.     It's  been  raining 

cats  and  dogs  so  badly  that  no  one  has  ventured  out  of 

the  house  except  when  there  was  business  that  simply 

had  to  be  attended  to. 

The  monotony  was  relieved  this  morning  by  an  East 
Indian  palm-reader  and  fortune-teller.  There  was  noth- 
ing else  to  do,  and  a  lot  of  us  had  our  fortunes  told. 
He  looked  over  my  palms  and  pointed  out  the  life  line. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  55 

the  fortune  line,  and  the  line  of  the  heart.  He  said  I  was 
booked  for  long  life,  with  no  sickness  to  speak  of.  Then 
he  studied  over  the  fortune  line  a  while  and  assured  me 
that  I  had  had  a  great  deal  of  money,  all  of  which  I  had 
earned  myself.  He  said  that  I  would  never  have  any 
money  left  to  me,  and  that  what  I  had  already  was  not 
a  marker  to  what  I  was  going  to  have.  He  said  it  was 
coming  in  1901  and  1902.  I  would  engage  in  business 
in  those  years,  he  declared,  that  would  bring  me  plenty 
of  money.  Next  he  declared  that  I  had  many  friends 
who  were  good  friends,  but  that  I  would  never  benefit 
from  their  friendship ;  it  would  all  be  the  other  way — 
they  would  benefit  from  me.  Modesty  forbids  my  re- 
peating what  he  said  about  the  size  of  my  heart  and  my 
generosity.  He  told  me  next  that  I  was  going  to  start 
home  very  soon.  I  assured  him  with  an  absolutely 
straight  face  that  I  was  going  to  stay  here  three  or  four 
years,  but  it  didn't  shake  him ;  he  held  up  both  hands  and 
declared  that  I  would  be  home  before  this  year  had 
passed.  He  said  that  I  was  going  to  get  a  letter  that 
would  start  me.  He  was  equally  positive  about  that 
money  in  1901  and  1902,  so  I  guess  we  are  on  Easy 
Street — hey,  sweetheart?  Of  course,  this  was  all  very 
foolish,  but  it  helped  while  away  the  time,  and  anything 
that  does  that  at  this  distance  from  home  is  worth  the 
money.  I  paid  him  one  Mexican  dollar,  which  is  worth 
50  cents  of  our  money.  Well,  that  was  the  happening  of 
the  day ;  nothing  else  has  turned  up  worth  writing  about. 
This  afternoon  I  went  to  a  jewelry  store  here  and 
looked  at  a  lot  of  Chinese  silverware.  The  Chinese  are 
very  clever  in  their  silver  work.  I  saw  a  lot  of  things 
that  made  my  mouth  water.  The  trinkets  were  not  of 
any  particular  use,  but  were  exquisitely  worked.  Among 
them  were  individual  salt  and  pepper  boxes  that  I  re- 
solved to  possess  myself  of  before  I  return  home.  I'll 
bid  you  good-night.     God  bless  all  of  you. 

The  Astor  House,  SHANnnAi,  eighth  moon,  twenty- 
fifth  day,  26th  year  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu,  being 
Tuesday,  September  18,  1900. 

The  typhoon  has  gone,  the  sun  is  shining,  and  life  is 


56  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

once  more  worth  living,  even  taking  into  account  tHe 
lonesomeness  of  things.  I  had  a  long  jinrikisha  ride 
this  morning,  over  in  the  French  Settlement,  looking  for 
a  ship  that  would  take  me  to  Peking.  I  didn't  find  one, 
but  I  did  see  more  missionaries  than  you  could  shake  a 
stick  at. 

As  nearly  as  I  can  learn,  the  missionary  doesn't  have  a 
very  hard  time  out  here  except  in  times  like  this.  Now 
and  then  one  of  them  is  killed,  but  it  is  not  often,  and  in 
proportion  to  the  number  of  them  here  the  record  is 
not  large.  They  are  not  prohibited  from  having  fam- 
ilies. In  fact,  they  are  rather  encouraged  in  that  prac- 
tice. For  every  child  they  have,  they  get  $ioo  a  year 
extra  salary.  This  is  to  provide  for  the  maintenance  of 
the  child  and  its  education.  Ten  children  bring  in  an  in- 
come of  $i,ooo  a  year  extra,  and  there  are  many  mission- 
aries' families  that  have  that  many  children. 

The  missionaries  who  dress  as  I  have  told  you  are  sent 
out  here  by  the  China  Inland  Missionary  Society  of  Eng- 
land. They  are  religious  missionaries,  purely,  and  for 
that  reason  the  Chinese  hate  them.  Our  own  mission- 
aries, as  a  rule,  stand  better  with  the  Chinese  for  the 
reason  that  they  run  more  to  education  and  medical  work. 
Practically  all  of  the  hospital  and  the  educational  work 
in  China  is  in  the  hands  of  the  American  missionaries, 
and  it  is  work  that  helps  the  Chinese,  and  improves  their 
condition  and  their  morals.  The  Chinese  realize  that, 
and  they  like  the  American  missionaries,  not  because 
they  are  Americans,  but  because  of  the  work  they  are 
doing.  The  Americans  have  had  many  evidences  of  this 
liking,  they  tell  me.  Several  times,  when  there  have  been 
native  uprisings,  the  Chinese  officials  have  sent  for  the 
Americans  and  have  told  them  that  trouble  was  coming, 
and  that  it  would  be  advisable  for  them  to  go  away  for  a 
few  days. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  67 

(This  letter  is  addressed  to  another  member  of  the  family.  It  is  in- 
serted in  full,  although  a  part  of  it  repeats  somewhat  a  previous  letter.) 

The  Astor  House,  Shanghai,  eighth  moon,  twenty- 
eighth  day,  26th  year  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu, 
Brother  of  the  Moon,  Son  of  Heaven,  and  Room- 
mate of  the  Stars,  the  same  in  plain  EngHsh  being 
Friday,  September  21,  a.  d.  1900. 

With  this  Chinese  calendar  opening,  my  dear  sister, 
I  will  proceed  to  call  down  on  your  head  the  blessing  of 
the  various  Josses  (I  guess  that  is  the  plural  of  Joss), 
and  will  endeavor  to  enlighten  you  on  the  subject  of 
missionaries  in  the  Celestial  Kingdom,  known  to  the 
world  as  China.  I  have  no  doubt  you  will  be  interested, 
and,  having  slept  next  door  to  a  missionary  for  fully  two 
weeks,  I  feel  myself  competent  to  tackle  the  subject. 
Shanghai  is  the  present  abiding  place  of  a  large  bunch  of 
them,  and  I  have  studied  them,  outwardly,  with  more  or 
less  care. 

You  see,  when  the  trouble  in  the  north  became  really 
serious,  the  various  Consuls  representing  countries  that 
have  missionaries  out  here  sent  word  to  all  of  them  to 
come  into  the  seaport  towns,  where  they  could  be  properly 
protected,  and  the  missionaries  needed  no  second  invita- 
tion. That  explains  the  presence  of  so  large  a  number 
in  Shanghai  now.  I  probably  would  not  have  noticed 
them  particularly  had  it  not  been  for  the  fact  that  this 
missionary  who  lives  next  door  to  me  in  the  hotel  is 
married,  and  Mrs.  Missionary  suffers  from  a  sour 
stomach  and  a  sore  throat.  She  also  has  a  voice  that  is 
a  fairly  good  imitation  of  a  buzz  saw — you  know,  one 
of  those  voices  that  impress  you  with  the  idea  that  it 
hurts  to  use  them.  Pray  don't  think  I  am  joking  about 
this,  for  I'm  really  serious.  I  know  you'd  never  suspect 
me  of  paying  any  particular  attention  to  missionaries, 
and  hence  I  will  go  into  a  rather  extended  explanation 
of  how  I  came  to  do  it. 

Mrs.  Missionary  has  a  habit  of  waking  up  at  12  mid- 
night, 2  a.  m.,  3.29  A.  M.,  and  5.41  a.  m.,  to  assure  Mr. 
Missionary  that  her  stomach  is  sour,  and  that  her  throat 
is  sore,  and  she  evidently  is  convinced  that  Mr.  Mission- 
ary, knowing  the  reasons  for  these  misfortunes,  is  con- 


58  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

cealing  them  from  her.  Judging  entirely  from  the  re- 
plies that  Mr.  Missionary  gives,  his  stomach  is  quite  as 
sour  as  hers.  I  report  here,  verbatim,  the  conversation 
that  first  attracted  my  attention  to  this  most  interesting 
subject  of  missionaries.  It  occurred  Saturday  night, 
that  being  the  15th  night  of  the  eighth  moon  of  the  26th 
year  of  the  reign  of  the  Son  of  Heaven,  Brother  of  the 
Moon,  etc.,  and  let  me  assure  you  it  has  occurred  nightly 
since  at  the  hours  that  I  have  mentioned. 

Mrs.  Missionary — "  John !  John !  wake  up,  dear.  I 
don't  know  what's  the  matter  with  me.  John  (this  bit- 
ten off  very  sharply),  John,  I  say!  "  (pause). 

Mr.  Missionary's  voice — "  Whaz  'e  matter?  Whaz  'e 
matter?    Go  sleep!  " 

Mrs.  Missionary' s — "  Oh,  John,  how  can  you !  John, 
dear,  my  stomach's  so  sour  !     J-o-h-n  !  " 

Mr.  Missionary's  voice — "  Go  sleep,  I  say  (silence  a 
moment).     Stop  it!     Stop  it,  I  say.     Stop  hitting  me!" 

Mrs.  Missionary's  bu:;a  sazv — "  Then  wake  up,  you 
mean  thing.  I  tell  you  my  stomach's  sour  and  my  throat 
is  sore.     Wake  up  !  " 

Mr.  Missionary's  voice — "  Au-right,  go  sleep.  Stop ! 
stop  !     Lemme  be  !  " 

Mrs.  Missionary's  voice — "  Please,  John,  wake  up. 
My  stomach's  so  sour.  It  must  have  been  that  ice  cream 
I  had  for  dinner.  Maybe  it  was  the  sausage  I  had  for 
breakfast.     John,  John!  which  was  it,  dear?" 

Mr.  Missionary's  voice — *'  Go  sleep,  go  sleep.  Ouch ! 
Stop !     S-t-o-p !  " 

Mrs.  Missionary's  voice — "  Wake  up,  then.  Dear  me ! 
I  never  saw  such  a  man !  You  don't  care  whether  I'm 
sick  or  not  (sniffle).  You  don't!  You  don't!" 
(snuffle). 

Mr.  Missionary's  voice — "  Why,  what's  the  matter, 
dear  ?     What  is  it  ?  why — why — " 

Mrs.  Missionary's  voice,  (interrupting) — "  You  don't 
care  a  snap,  you — you — you — (sniffle) — you're  just  as 
mean  as  you  can  be,  you — you — " 

Mr.  Missionary's  voice — "  Oh,  forgive  me,  dear.  I 
was  asleep.  What  is  it?  Go  to  sleep,  now,  that's  a 
good  girl.     Good-night." 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  59 

Mrs.  Missionary's  voice — "  John,  John,  I  tell  you  I'm 
sick.    My  stom-acKs  sour — my  throat's  sore !  " 

Mr.  Missionary's  voice — "Oh,  g'wan  t'sleep,  I  say! 
You're  enough  to  try  the  patience  of  Job !    Go  to  sleep." 

Mrs.  Missionary's  voice — "  I  won't." 

Then  silence.  I  leave  it  to  you,  now,  if  this,  happen- 
ing as  it  did  four  times  nightly  from  the  15th  day  of  the 
eighth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M. 
Kuang  Hsu,  Son  of  Heaven,  Brother  of  the  Moon,  etc., 
up  to  and  including  the  night  of  the  27th  day  of  the 
eighth  moon  of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu,  Son 
of  Heaven,  Brother  of  the  Moon,  etc.,  would  not  have 
directed  your  attention  toward  the  missionaries.  When 
I  first  heard  this  conversation  in  the  wee  sma'  hours 
that  in  this  part  of  the  world  are  ordinarily  dis- 
turbed only  by  the  bats  and  the  mosquitoes,  I  paid 
no  attention  to  it.  When,  an  hour  later,  I  heard  it  again, 
I  joined  with  the  missionary  in  a  wish  that  she'd  go  to 
sleep.  When,  an  hour  or  so  later,  I  heard  it  yet  again, 
I  said  to  myself  that  I  was  rather  glad  than  not  that  her 
stomach  was  sour,  and,  in  fact,  I  hoped  it  would  get 
sourer.  When,  an  hour  or  so  still  later,  I  again  heard 
it,  my  interest  was  aroused  and  I  determined  when  day- 
light came  to  find  out  what  manner  of  person  it  was  that 
suffered  so  terribly.  It  was  upon  inquiry  that  I  learned 
that  he  was  a  missionary,  and  that  she,  being  his  wife, 
was  presumably  a  missionary  also.  Then  it  was  that  I 
began  to  look  into  the  missionary  question,  and,  having 
explained  the  why,  I  will  go  ahead. 

I  find  that  most  of  the  missionaries  out  here  are  a 
pretty  fair  sort  of  people.  As  a  rule  they  are  not  highly 
educated.  I  am  speaking  now  of  the  English  ones. 
They  are,  many  of  them,  rather  narrow-minded,  and  just 
now  they  are  searching  after  blood  rather  than  after 
souls.  I  have  talked  with  a  number  of  them  and  they 
all  insist  that  the  only  thing  to  do  in  China  is  to  cut  off 
the  head  of  every  mother's  son  of  a  Chinaman  who  had 
anything  to  do,  directly,  with  the  Boxer  movement,  or 
who  sympathized  with  it.  Indeed,  they  are  much  more 
emphatic  in  their  demands  for  blood  than  was  Emperor 
William  a  month  ago.    This  spirit  is  perhaps  excusable, 


60  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

when  the  troubles  they  have  had  are  considered,  together 
with  the  fact  that  they  are  eager  to  go  back  into  the  in- 
terior again  and  want  terror  to  be  struck  into  the  hearts 
of  the  Chinese.  Nevertheless,  it  sounds  a  little  strange 
to  hear  a  disciple  of  the  Messenger  of  Peace  calling  for 
blood  so  loudly  that  everybody  hears  him  or  her. 

Nearly  all  of  the  English  missionaries  seem  to  be 
heartily  hated  by  the  natives.  They  come  chiefly  from  the 
China  Inland  Mission  of  London.  They  ape  the  Qiinese. 
The  men  wear  their  hair  in  braids,  just  like  the  natives, 
the  fore  part  of  the  head  being  shaved  in  native  style, 
and  they  wear  Chinese  clothes.  The  women  dress  like 
natives,  too.  At  the  first  sight  of  these  things  one  is 
tempted  to  resent  them.  But  I  believe  there  is  a  good 
excuse  for  it.  In  the  first  place,  they  go  off  into  the  in- 
terior, where  it  is  impossible  to  get  white  men's  clothes. 
Chinese  clothing  can,  of  course,  be  purchased  anywhere. 
Then,  again,  they  say  that  they  do  not  attract  the  atten- 
tion they  would  if  they  were  dressed  like  white  men,  and 
so  there  is  not  so  much  danger  of  their  being  attacked. 

These  missionaries  do  nothing  but  preach  religion,  and 
they  take  up  the  cause  of  their  converts,  that  is,  the  tem- 
poral cause.  Right  there  is  where  a  great  deal  of  the 
trouble  comes  in.  It  often  happens  that  a  Chinaman  in- 
volved in  a  lawsuit  joins  the  church,  whereupon,  if  he 
is  beaten  in  the  lawsuit,  he  is  beaten  because  he  is  a 
Christian,  and  the  missionaries  take  the  matter  up  and 
force  their  Consul  to  act,  and  perhaps  the  Chinese  judg- 
ment is  reversed,  and — there  you  are !  The  Christian 
Chinaman  is  not  a  Christian,  of  course;  he  joined  the 
church  just  to  get  the  aid  of  the  English  Government  in 
getting  the  best  of  his  heathen  neighbors.  You  can  see 
what  would  be  the  outcome  of  many  such  cases,  and 
there  have  been  many  such. 

But  I  want  to  say  again  that  these  are  the  English 
missionaries.  Our  own  missionaries  have  been  wiser, 
and  with  them  it  is  very  different.  The  Chinese  like  our 
missionaries,  as  a  rule.  The  reason  is  this :  most  of  our 
missionaries  in  China  are  medical  missionaries  or  educa- 
tional missionaries.  They  have  established  hospitals  and 
schools.    They  hunt  out  the  sick  and  give  them  medical 


ORDERED    TO    CHIN  A  61 

attendance.  They  relieve  suffering  where  they  find  it. 
Practically  all  the  hospital  work  in  China,  I  am  told,  is 
in  the  hands  of  American  missionaries,  and  the  same  is 
true  of  the  educational  work.  The  Chinese  realize  that 
both  these  branches  of  work  are  for  their  good  and  they 
like  it.  While  the  religious  end  is  not  slighted  by  these 
missionaries  of  ours,  it  is  not  forced  on  the  Chinese. 
The  best  evidence  that  the  Americans  are  liked,  not  be- 
cause they  are  Americans,  you  understand,  but  because 
of  their  work,  is  that  on  several  occasions  when  upris- 
ings have  taken  place,  the  officials  have  gone  to  the 
Americans  in  advance,  and  have  told  them  they  had  bet- 
ter go  away  for  a  few  days.  Another  thing,  to  avoid  the 
bad  feeling  that  comes  from  lawsuits,  the  Americans  in- 
sist that  a  Chinaman,  before  he  joins  a  church,  shall 
settle  all  his  lawsuits.  So  our  Consuls  don't  get  mixed 
up  in  the  troubles  that  the  other  Consuls  figure  in. 

The  tendency  among  the  foreign  population  other  than 
missionary,  as  it  is  at  home,  is  to  say  that  the  mission- 
aries are  to  blame  for  the  trouble  out  here.  It  occurs 
to  me  that,  while  there  may  be  a  great  deal  in  that,  there 
is  still  another  reason  for  which  Western  civilization  is 
to  blame,  and  that  is  the  introduction  of  modern  im- 
provements, such  as  railroads,  for  instance.  In  China, 
for  ages  everything  that  has  been  done  has  been  done 
by  hand.  Let  us  take  transportation  for  an  example. 
Every  pound  of  freight  that  was  carried  had  to  be  car- 
ried by  hand  or  by  boat.  The  coolies  who  did  this  work 
inherited  the  business  from  their  fathers.  Every  pas- 
senger carried  overland  was  carried  in  a  chair  on  the 
backs  of  coolies,  and  the  chair-carriers  inherited  the  busi- 
ness from  their  fathers.  Now  along  comes  a  railroad, 
and  in  a  moment  all  these  coolies  find  their  occupation 
gone.  Goods  are  carried  by  carloads  over  long  stretches 
of  country  at  speed  that  is  to  the  Chinese  coolies  incred- 
ible. Trains  carry  hundreds  of  passengers  at  a  time. 
The  railroads  are  introduced  by  foreigners,  and  perhaps 
operated  by  foreigners.  The  coolies  look  upon  them  as 
institutions  of  the  foreign  devil  who  have  come  to  de- 
prive them  of  the  means  of  livelihood  inherited  from 
their   fathers.     It  is  worth  noting  that  the  very  first 


62  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

property  destroyed  in  the  north  during  this  present 
Boxer  uprising  was  the  railroad. 

Now,  as  it  is  in  transportation,  so  is  it  in  all  other  work 
where  modern  ideas  and  modern  methods  have  been  in- 
troduced. Every  labor-saving  machine  means  so  much 
less  labor,  and  the  Chinese  coolie  is  not  sufficiently  ad- 
vanced intellectually  to  appreciate  the  advantage  that 
comes  to  the  whole  people  by  these  new  ideas  and  new 
methods.  All  he  sees  is  his  means  of  liveUhood  disap- 
pearing through  some  contrivance  of  the  foreign  devil. 
Perhaps  this  thing  has  had  as  much  to  do  with  the 
trouble  as  our  friends  the  missionaries.  If  it  has,  think 
of  what  is  still  before  us,  as  machinery  and  modern 
methods  are  forced  on  the  Chinese,  for,  as  a  whole,  the 
Chinese  are  still  doing  things  as  their  forefathers  did, 
and  modern  methods  have  only  the  smallest  foothold. 

There,  I  suppose,  you  will  think,  after  reading  this 
long,  and,  perhaps,  in  spots,  ribald  screed,  that  I  have  be- 
come a  ready  letter-writer.  I  simply  had  something  on 
my  mind  that  I  wanted  to  unload,  and  you  are  the  un- 
fortunate victim. 

I  expect  to  go  north  in  a  day  or  two,  and  I  have  no 
idea  how  long  I  shall  stay.  I  am  as  well  as  I  ever  was 
in  my  life,  and  except  for  the  loss  of  sleep — the  direct  re- 
sult, I  assure  you,  of  the  sourness  of  Mrs.  Missionary's 
stomach — I  am  all  right.  I  trust  everybody  is  well  and 
happy  at  home,  though  I  haven't  heard. 

The  Astor  House,  Shanghai,  Eighth  moon,  twenty- 
sixth  day,  26tli  year,  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu,  being 
Wednesday,  September  19,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord, 
1900. 
The  26th  day  of  the  eighth  moon  in  China  is  a  good 
deal   like    all   the   other   days,    lonesome,    and    with   not 
enough  good  hard  labor  to  keep  one  from  thinking  of  his 
loneliness.     I  spent  a  large  part  of  to-day  trying  to  find 
a  steamer  that  would  take  me  to  Taku  and  Peking,  and 
without  success.     Fll  have  to  start  in  fresh  again  to- 
morrow, and  I  certainly  hope  Ell  have  better  luck,  for 
after  a  time   Shanghai  begins  to  pall  on  one,   and  he 
pines  for  scenes  new.    Em  pining. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  63 

After  I  finished  my  search  to-day  I  went  to  see  the 
American  Consul,  and  this  afternoon,  after  the  Consulate 
had  closed,  I  went  out  driving  with  him  to  the  Bubbling 
iWell.  We  ran  across  a  camp  of  German  soldiers  on  the 
way,  and  stopped  long  enough  to  see  them  drill.  It  was 
a  great  sight.  They  moved  about  with  the  precision  of 
machinery.  It  was  just  like  one  man  moving,  though 
there  were  400  of  them.  They  made  a  fine  show  for  the 
Chinese  that  watched  them. 

At  the  end  of  the  drive  we  went  into  a  little  road- 
house  kept  by  a  Frenchman  and  his  wife,  and  there  we 
had  some  bread  and  butter  and  pot-cheese.  What  do 
you  think  of  that?  Real  American  pot-cheese,  made  in 
China  by  a  dairymaid.  It  was  pretty  fine,  too,  after  we 
had  worked  it  up  with  more  milk,  and  with  butter  and 
salt,  as  I  have  seen  you  do  it  at  home. 

To-night,  sitting  out  on  the  porch  of  the  hotel,  an  Eng- 
lishman plumped  himself  down  beside  me  and  began  to 
sing  his  own  praises.  That's  a  little  habit  the  Englishmen 
have.  This  man  was  a  Hebrew,  and  he  came  from  South 
Africa,  where  he  had  been  for  two  years,  taking  pictures 
of  the  war  and  of  other  things  for  a  cinemetograph  com- 
pany. He  said  he  had  come  out  here  to  take  more  pic- 
tures, which  reminds  me  that  in  this  heathen  country  the 
best  weapon  a  man  can  carry  is  a  camera.  It  beats  pistols 
and  knives  and  guns.  Point  a  camera  at  a  Chinaman  of 
the  lower  class  and  he  will  fall  on  his  knees  and  kowtow 
until  you  think  he  will  surely  bump  his  brains  out — if  he 
has  any  of  that  article.  They  believe,  the  people  who 
know  them  tell  me,  that  the  camera  takes  away  their  spirit 
and  hoodoos  them  forever.  They  have  to  go  to  Joss  and 
invoke  aid  of  him  and  of  all  the  other  gods,  to  get  the 
spirit  back  again ;  and  it's  no  sure  thing  then.  So,  if  you 
just  shake  a  camera  at  a  Chinaman  he'll  run.  I  haven't 
a  camera,  but  I  guess  if  there's  any  more  trouble  in  sights 
I'll  have  to  lay  in  a  stock. 

The  Astor  House,  Shanghai,  eighth  moon,  twenty- 
seventh  day,  26th  year  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu,  being 
Thursday,  September  20,  1900. 

I'm  getting  to  be  an  old   resident   of  this  town  of 


64  ORDEREDTOCHINA 

Shanghai,  much  against  my  will.  I  haven't  been  able  yet 
to  catch  a  boat  that  will  taJ-ce  me  to  the  frozen  North. 
The  agents  of  the  various  lines  keep  telling  me  that  there 
will  be  a  boat  to-morrow.  It's  always  "  mafiana  "  here, 
just  as  it  is  in  Cuba  and  Porto  Rico.  It's  a  slow  part  of 
the  world,  I  can  tell  you.  If  people  did  things  in  the 
States  the  way  they  do  them  here,  they  would  simply 
never  get  anything  done.  To-morrow  seems  to  be  good 
enough  for  anybody,  and,  as  you  know,  to-morrow  is  the 
day  that  never  comes ;  it  is  always  to-morrow.  I  am 
making  the  best  of  my  time  here,  however.  What  little 
news  there  is  to  send  I  am  sending,  and  the  rest  of 
the  time  I  am  keeping  my  eyes  and  ears  open  and 
learning. 

I  took  a  walk  this  afternoon  along  the  river  front  and 
watched  the  houseboat-men.  You  know,  the  houseboats 
form  one  of  the  features  of  Chinese  life.  They  are  actu- 
ally floating  homes,  and  whole  families  live  in  them,  to 
say  nothing  of  boarders.  Babies  are  born  in  them  and 
grow  up  to  be  old  men  and  women,  scarcely  ever,  it  might 
be  said,  touching  their  feet  to  the  ground.  Their  whole 
lives  are  spent  on  the  boats.  On  these  boats  the  women 
are  the  bosses.  It's  a  peculiarity  of  Chinese  women.  If 
they  escape  the  vicissitudes  of  childhood — that  is,  mur- 
der— and  grow  up,  then  they  are  the  business  end  of  the 
whole  shooting-match.  In  early  life  they  are  lucky  if  they 
escape  at  all.  A  girl  baby  is  looked  upon  as  a  misfortune, 
and  it  is  all  right  to  dispose  of  her  in  whatever  way  may 
be  convenient. 

Out  riding  in  a  'riksha  the  other  day  with  F.,  we 
passed  a  stone  pillar.  It  was  hollow.  It  was  a  baby 
well.  In  the  old  days,  if  a  girl  baby  was  not  wanted,  she 
would  be  taken  to  this  well  and  dropped  down  there  to 
die.  Of  course  this  practice  is  not  carried  on  now  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  sea-coast,  where  the  Chinese  are 
slightly  civilized,  but  in  the  interior  there  are  still  such 
places  in  use. 

'  While  girl  babies  are  hated  and  despised,  boy  babies  are 
looked  upon  as  great  blessings,  and  nothing  in  the  world 
is  too  good  for  them.  The  distinction  is  a  queer  one, 
when  you  consider  the  fact  that  in  after  life,  as  I  said  be- 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  65 

fore,  the  woman  is  the  most  important,  and  I  don't  know 
how  to  account  for  the  change. 

These  houseboats  I  started  to  tell  you  about  move 
around  from  place  to  place.  It's  cheap,  you  see.  They 
don't  have  to  pay  any  rent.  The  boats  vary  in  size  from 
twenty  to  fifty  feet  in  length,  and  about  two-thirds  of  their 
length  is  covered  over.  They  are  fitted  with  cook-stoves 
and  all  that,  and  apparently  the  Chinese  get  along  and  live 
happily  in  them. 

To  go  back  to  the  Chinese  women  again :  I  have  not 
seen  half  as  many  cripple-footed  women  as  I  expected  to 
see,  but  I've  seen  a  great  many.  Their  feet  are  not  as 
large  as  my  hand,  and  appear  to  be  just  about  the  shape 
of  a  clenched  fist — no  foot  shape  about  them  at  all. 
Usually  the  women  with  such  feet  wear  sky-blue  slippers, 
and  they  ride.  It  is  painful  to  see  them  walk,  really  it 
is.  They  hobble  along  as  if  every  step  was  torture, 
though  I  don't  suppose  it  hurts  them  at  all,  for  they  are 
used  to  it.  I  can't  help  thinking,  when  I  look  at  these 
poor  creatures,  what  a  fine  thing  it  is  to  be  an  American 
woman. 

The  Astor  House,  Shanghai,  eighth,  moon,  twenty- 
eighth  day,  26th  year  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu,  being 
Friday,  September  21. 

This  is  mail  day,  and  I've  only  time  to  write  you  a  very 
short  letter,  if  I  want  to  get  it  off  on  this  steamer,  the 
Peking,  the  one  I  came  over  on.  She's  been  to  Hong 
Kong,  and  now  she's  on  her  homeward  trip  again.  I 
won't  feel  so  badly  about  this  being  a  short  letter,  because 
I  know  there  are  six  long  ones  that  will  reach  you  at  the 
same  time.  What  do  you  think  of  me  as  a  letter-writer, 
anyway?  You  didn't  think  when  I  went  away  that  I 
was  going  to  keep  my  promise  to  write  every  day,  did 
you  ?  Well,  I  don't  blame  you  a  bit,  for  usually  I  haven't 
kept  promises  of  that  kind.  This  time,  however,  I  firmly 
resolved  to  keep  it,  and  I'm  kind  of  proud  of  myself — are 
not  you,  now,  honest  Injun?  I  don't  know  whether  what 
I  have  been  writing  has  interested  you  or  not,  but 
anyway  my  intentions  have  been  good. 

I'd  just  like  to  drop  in  on  you  now  suddenly  and  see 


66  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

what  you  are  doing.  Let  me  see.  It's  4  o'cloclc  in  tHe 
afternoon  here,  so  it  must  be  3  o'clock  in  the  morning  in 
Brooklyn.  I  guess  I  would  find  you  sound  asleep,  sur- 
rounded by  the  babies.  But  there  isn't  much  chance  of 
my  dropping  in  suddenly,  for  a  few  days  at  least,  so  I'll 
give  up  the  thought  of  it. 

General  von  Waldersee,  the  Dutchman  who  is  going  to 
command  things  in  the  North,  is  expected  here  at  5 
o'clock,  and  the  town  is  turned  upside  down  to  greet  him. 
You  see,  he  is  the  biggest  man  in  the  German  army,  and 
everybody  is  anxious  to  see  what  kind  of  a  looking  man 
he  is.  I  think  I'll  go  and  take  a  look  at  him  myself.  I 
suppose  I'll  see  more  or  less  of  him  in  the  North,  and 
there's  nothing  like  getting  acquainted  early  in  the  game. 

I  had  a  piece  of  luck  to-day.  I  ran  across  a  fellow 
from  the  North  who  had  a  load  of  loot  from  Peking  with 
him.  He  showed  a  lot  of  it  to  me,  and  afterward  he  in- 
sisted that  I  and  the  man  who  was  with  me  should  have 
some  of  his  silk  made  into  pajamas.  A  tailor  was  called 
in,  and  we  were  all  measured  and  are  to  have  two  suits 
each  of  silk  pajamas.  It  is  the  finest  kind  of  silk,  too. 
Maybe  I  won't  be  swell  when  I  get  them !  The  man  also 
gave  me  a  little  jade  ornament  that  he  said  he  got  in  the 
Emperor's  palace  at  Peking.  Jade,  you  know,  is  very 
valuable  out  here.  Why,  I  don't  know,  for  it  is  not  very 
pretty  stuff.  It  is  a  nice  little  souvenir  of  Peking,  never- 
theless. 

I'll  bid  you  good-bye  again  for  a  day.  Be  good  and 
you'll  be  happy.  That  sounds  natural,  doesn't  it?  Don't 
pine  for  me.  I'm  well  and  hearty,  and  in  no  danger,  and 
all  that  troubles  me  is  the  want  of  a  sight  of  my  own  dear 
wife  and  the  babies.    God  bless  you  all. 

The  Astor  House,  Shanghai,  eighth  moon,  twenty- 
ninth  day,  26th  year,  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu,  being 
Saturday,  September  22,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord 
1900. 
The  Peking  got  away  yesterday  all   right,  with  my 
batch  of  letters,  seven  in  all,  to  you,  and  this  will  be  the 
first  of  the  bunch  to  reach  you  by  the  next  mail.    They 
ought  to  get  there  about  four  days  after  the  others,  for. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  67 

while  they  won't  leave  until  a  week  later,  they  go  in  a 
faster  steamer. 

1  told  you  in  Friday's  letter  that  I  thought  I  would  join 
the  crowd  and  go  and  see  Count  von  Waldersee.  That's 
what  I  did,  and  it  was  a  pretty  good  show,  too.  There 
were  a  thousand  troops  drawn  up  to  meet  him,  headed  by 
the  Sikhs,  who  are  British  Indian  soldiers.  Most  of  them 
are  splendid  specimens  of  manhood,  physically.  I  think  I 
have  already  told  you  that  a  large  part  of  the  police  force 
of  Shanghai  is  made  up  of  these  men. 

This,  by  the  way,  recalls  a  funny  thing.  The  rules 
governing  the  'ricksha  men  here  are  very  stringent,  and 
the  Sikh  policemen  enforce  them  strictly.  When  a  'rick- 
sha man  violates  a  rule  the  big  policemen  go  for  him  hke 
mad  with  clubs.  But  they  don't  beat  the  'ricksha  man, 
they  beat  the  'ricksha.  I  asked  why,  to-day,  and  the  reply 
was,  "  A  Chinaman  doesn't  care  how  much  he  is  beaten, 
but  if  his  'ricksha  is  injured,  it  costs  money  for  re- 
pairs." He'd  be  glad  enough  to  take  the  beating  in 
the  place  of  the  'ricksha,  if  the  police  would  only  give  it  to 
him.  This  is  an  illustration  of  the  Chinaman's  cupidity 
in  money  matters,  and  of  his  indifference  to  physical  suf- 
fering, either  for  himself  or  anybody  else. 

But  to  get  back  to  the  arrival  of  the  Count.  The  boat 
he  came  from  Germany  on  drew  so  much  water  that  she 
could  not  come  up  the  river.  So  he  was  transferred  at 
Woo  Sung  to  a  small  boat  and  brought  up  on  that.  Be- 
sides the  troops  that  were  assembled  to  welcome  him 
formally,  I  think  practicallv  all  of  the  foreign  population 
were  out  to  see  him.  All  told,  there  must  have  been 
10,000  people,  including  Chinamen,  along  the  water- 
front. When  his  boat  approached  the  band  started  up 
various  national  airs,  the  crowd  yelled,  and  there  was  a 
great  time  generally.  He  was  put  in  a  carriage  and  taken 
away  to  the  German  Consulate,  preceded  by  a  hundred 
mounted  Sikhs  and  followed  by  the  other  soldiers. 
There  he  made  a  little  sjjeech  in  German  to  the  troops. 
Of  course  they  did  not  understand  a  word  of  it. 

The  Count  isn't  a  bad-looking  fellow,  but  he  wears 
more  gold  lace  than  a  Japanese  quarantine  official.  Gold 
lace  is  so  common  out  here  that  I  should  think  real  big 


68  ORDEREDTOCHINA 

men  would  taboo  it.  Of  course  the  Count  was  accom- 
panied by  his  staff,  each  member  of  which  had  a  separate 
and  distinct  load  of  gold  lace,  and,  in  addition  to  that,  a 
string  of  medals  a  foot  long  which  he  wore  across  his 
bosom.  Each  member  of  the  staff  was  accompanied  by 
a  valet,  who  vied  with  the  master  in  the  yellowness  of 
his  decorations.  This  bunch  all  came  to  the  Astor  House, 
and  from  that  on  until  to-night,  when  they  left,  there  was 
nothing  but  Dutch  heard  about  the  hotel. 

The  most  interesting  occurrence  of  to-day,  and  I  guess 
the  most  interesting  incident  of  the  Count's  visit,  was 
the  official  call  made  on  him  by  the  Chinese  Tao-tai.  This 
individual  is  the  boss  Chinaman  of  the  city.  In  the 
pigeon  English  in  vogue  here,  he  is  "  No.  i  Chinaman." 
His  job  is  about  the  same  as  the  mayor's  in  New  York. 
I  had  never  seen  a  No.  i  Chinaman  mal^e  an  official  visit 
before,  and  it  was  a  show.  I  was  sitting  on  the  hotel  porch 
about  lo  o'clock,  when  I  heard  a  tremendous  commotion 
up  the  street,  and  I  ran  down  to  see  what  was  up. 
Along  came  a  most  motley  procession.  First,  there  was 
a  young  Chinaman,  swinging  a  big  lavender-colored  flag, 
covered  with  Chinese  letters.  He  wore  a  lavender  suit. 
Then  came  four  fellows  in  blue,  with  Chinese  characters 
plastered  on  their  backs  and  each  carrying  a  big  red  board 
covered  with  Chinese  characters  in  gold.  These  boards, 
I  learned,  contained  the  various  titles  of  the  distinguished 
officials  who  followed.  Next  came  two  fellows  in  red 
who  carried  immense  gongs  of  brass  suspended  from 
their  shoulders  by  bamboo  poles.  They  beat  these  gongs 
and  made  a  most  unearthly  din.  Behind  them  came  two 
men  dressed  exactly  like  circus  clowns,  in  red,  with 
clown's  hats  and  chicken  feathers  sticking  from  the  top. 
These  men  kept  up  a  yelling  that  was  more  unearthly 
even  than  the  noise  of  the  gongs.  The  gong-bearers,  I 
learned,  were  warning  the  common  people  to  get  out  of 
the  way  of  the  great  man  who  was  coming.  The  clowns 
were  delivering  the  message  vocally,  and  were  official 
criers. 

Next  in  line  came  about  forty  men  in  red-lined  blue 
coats,  with  white  circles  covered  with  red  characters  on 
their  backs,  and  wearing  trousers  that  were  once  white, 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  69 

and  circular  hats  that  went  to  a  peak,  out  of  which 
sprouted  red  tassels.  These  were  the  retainers,  the  per- 
sonal body-guard,  of  the  Tao-tai.  Next  came  a  tall  fel- 
low in  red  and  white,  who  carried  a  parasol  of  turkey  red, 
with  white  muslin  fringe.  The  handle  of  the  parasol  was 
twenty  feet  long.  This  man  yelled,  too.  After  him 
came  two  fellows  in  red  clothes  and  peaked  hats,  carrying 
great  axes.  They  were  the  Tao-tai's  executioners,  and 
were  supposed  to  cut  down  any  common  mortal  who  ap- 
proached or  got  in  the  way.  They  don't  actually  do  this 
here,  but  in  the  interior  of  China  they  always  do  it.  After 
them  came  a  most  gorgeous  sedan-chair,  covered  with 
royal  blue  silk  and  carried  by  four  bearers  in  beautiful 
attire,  and  in  this  chair  was  his  job-lots,  the  Tao-tai,  who, 
let  me  interject,  by  the  way,  has  just  been  "  promoted  " 
to  the  office  of  Provincial  Judge  of  the  adjoining  prov- 
ince, where  the  Boxers  are  thick,  and  where  he  will  cer- 
tainly be  beheaded  as  soon  as  he  arrives.  This  is  a  small 
matter  in  China,  however,  and  we'll  go  back  to  the  pro- 
cession. Following  the  Tao-tai's  chair  came  a  white  horse 
with  a  red  saddle,  on  which  was  mounted  a  man  in  white 
and  wearing  a  white,  cone-shaped  hat  with  a  red  tassel. 
Then  came  another  chair  which  was  not  so  gorgeous  as 
the  Tao-tai's.  The  man  on  the  white  horse  was  the  Tao- 
tai's  personal  servant,  and  the  man  in  the  second  chair  was 
his  interpreter.  This  made  up  the  procession,  and  I  can 
tell  you  it  was  as  fine  and  as  funny  a  show  as  one  would 
want  to  see. 

Arriving  at  the  Consulate,  which  is  across  the  way 
from  the  hotel,  the  procession  stopped,  and  the  Tao-tai 
went  in  to  see  the  General,  while  the  army  of  retainers 
squatted  around  on  the  ground.  While  the  Tao-tai  was 
inside,  my  friend  of  the  cinemetograph  company,  men- 
tioned in  another  letter,  who  carries  a  case  marked  "  J. 
B.,  War  Correspondent,"  approached  this  army 
with  a  snap-shot  camera.  First  the  Chinese  seemed 
amused.  When  he  had  half  crossed  the  street  the  Chinese 
began  covering  their  faces  with  their  hands  and  hats.  As 
he  got  a  little  closer  they  were  filled  with  terror  and  began 
to  kowtow  to  him,  and  when  he  ventured  a  foot  or  two 
nearer  it  was  too  much — they  leaped  up  and  fled.     You 


70  ORDERED    TO   CHINA 

see,  they  couldn't  stand  the  camera.  They  would  not  re- 
turn to  their  places  until  the  camera  man  had  gone  away. 
The  whole  business  was  as  heathenish  as  anything  I  have 
ever  seen,  and  it  was  intensely  funny. 

Let  me  give  you  a  specimen  of  an  Englishman's  con- 
ceit. Our  troops  were  marching  by  the  hotel  this  morn- 
ing, and  I  was  at  the  window  watching  them,  when  an 
Englishman  came  up.  He  looked  on  a  while,  and,  turn- 
ing, said,  "  I  soy,  old  chap,  I'm  blawsted  sorry  th'  folks 
at  'ome  thought  best  to  soind  our  troops  'ere.  Th'  bloody 
beggars  of  foreigners,  don't  cha  know,  will  coipy  all  our 
organoyzation."  He  had  taken  me  for  an  Englishman, 
don't  cha  know,  and  I  couldn't  help  exclaiming,  "  Oh, 
hell !  "  much  to  his  shock,  I  think,  for  he  went  away 
P.  D.  Q. 

That's  the  story  of  the  day,  and  I'll  say  farewell  for 
twenty-four  hours  more.  I  only  wish  you  could  have 
been  here  to  see  the  fun. 

The  Astor  House,  Shanghai,  eighth  moon,  thirtieth 
day,  26th  year,  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu,  being  Sun- 
day, September  23,  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1900. 

This  pigeon  English  we  learn  to  talk  out  here  is  about 
the  funniest  thing  that  ever  happened.  I've  told  you 
some  things  about  it  in  previous  letters,  but  that  was 
before  I  began  to  pick  up  a  great  deal  of  it  myself.  I've 
a  stack  now,  and  I  can  get  along  finely.  For  in- 
stance, I  just  had  to  scold  the  China  boy  who  acts  as 
chambermaid  about  the  way  he  folded  those  new  silk 
pajamas  I  told  you  about.  I  just  said  to  him,  as  savagely 
as  I  could,  "  What  fashion  make-e  do  so  fashion  ?  Not 
ought  make-e  do  so  fashion.  No  can  do  right !  Mas- 
kee ! "  Which,  being  interpreted,  means,  "  What  did 
you  do  it  that  way  for?  You  should  not  have  done  it. 
You  don't  do  things  right.  Never  mind !  Get  out ! " 
The  Chinese  understand  this  sort  of  talk,  but  if  you 
talk  plain  English  to  them,  no  matter  how  slowly,  they 
won't  understand  a  word  you  say. 

In  a  book-store  this  morning  I  picked  up  a  copy  of 
"  Excelsior  "  written  in  pigeon  English,  and  it's  funny 
enough  to  copy  and  send  to  you.    You  remember  "  Excel- 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  71 

sior,"  of  course — "  The  shades  of  night  were  falling 
fast,  As  through  an  Alpine  village  passed,"  etc.  Now, 
to  get  the  full  enjoyment  of  this  you  want  to  take  a  copy 
of  "  Excelsior  "  (we  have  it  around  the  house,  some- 
where) and  read  the  two  together.    Here's  the  pigeon:* 

That  nightey-time  begin  chop  chop 
One  young  man  walkee,  no  can  stop, 
Maskee  snow,  maskee  ice, 
He  cally  flag  with  chop  so  nice, 
Top  side  galow  ! 

He  muchee  solly — one  piecee  eye, 
Look — see  sharp — so — all  same  my 
He  talkey  largey — talkee  stlong. 
Too  muchee  curio — all  same  gong, 
Top-side  galow. 

Inside  house  he  can  see  light. 
An  evly  loom  got  fire  all  light, 
He  lookee  pleanty  ice  more  high, 
Insidee  month  he  pleanty  cly. 
Top-side  galow. 

Ole  man  talkee  "  no  can  walk, 
By'mby  Iain  come — velly  dark, 
Hab  got  water,  velly  wide," 
Maskee,  my  must  go  top-side. 
Top-side  galow! 

"  Man — man  "  one  girley  talkee  he, 
"What  for  you  go  top-side  look-see?" 
And  one  time  more  he  plenty  cly. 
But  allo-time  walkee  pleanty  high, 
Top-side  galow. 

Take  care  that  spoilum  tlee  young  man. 
Take  care  that  ice.     He  want  man-man. 
That  coolie  chin-chin  he  "  Good  night," 
He  talkee  "  my  can  go  all  light," 
Top-side  galow." 

Joss-pidgin  man  he  soon  begin. 
Morning  time,  that  Joss  chin-chin. 
He  no  man  see  him  plenty  fear; 
Cos  some  man  talkee  he  can  hear. 
Top-side  galow. 

•  Written  in  pencil  and  somewhat  indistinctly. 


n  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

That  young  man  die,  one  large  dog  see. 
Too  muchee  bobbley  findee  he, 
He  hand  blong  colo — all  same  ice, 
Hab  get  he  flag  with  chop  so  nice; 
Top-side  galow! 

A/ora/. 

You  too  muchee  laugh,  what  for  sing, 
I  tink  so  you  no  savey  t'hat  ting, 
Supposey  you  no  belong  clever  inside. 
More  better  you  go  walk  top-side. 
Top-side  galow! 

How  is  that  for  "  Excelsior?  "  Well,  it's  a  good  speci- 
men of  pigeon  English.  In  the  language  out  here 
"  pigeon  "  means  "  business,"  "  chop  "  means  "  device," 
"  trade-mark,"  or  anything  like  that.  **  Chop  chop  " 
means  "  quick."  If  you  want  a  thing  done  quickly  you 
say  "  Can  do  chop  chop?  "  "  Joss  pigeon  man  "  means 
"  clergyman."  "  Coolie  "  is  workman.  "  Chin  chin  "  is 
talk.  It's  really  a  language  all  by  itself  and  it  is  easy  to 
pick  up  and  funny  to  listen  to. 

There  is  another  thing  of  interest  about  the  language 
question — that  is  to  get  along  here  at  all  you  have  to 
know  English.  The  French,  Germans,  Russians,  and  all 
the  rest  have  to  learn  some  English  to  do  business  with 
the  Chinese.  There  is  no  such  thing  as  pigeon  Russian, 
or  pigeon  French,  or  pigeon  German. 

Well,  this  is  Sunday  and  Shanghai  still  holds 
me.  I  guess  it  will  continue  to  hold  me  until 
Tuesday  morning.  The  China  Navigation  Company 
steamer  Tung  Chow  is  advertised  to  sail  for  Taku  on  that 
date,  and  if  she  sails  I  am  going  on  her.  Taku  is  the 
port  where  the  ships  stop.  It  is  thirteen  miles  from 
Tien  Tsin,  and  that  is  eighty  miles  from  Peking.  They 
are  both  nearer  New  York  than  Shanghai,  but  not  so 
convenient  to  get  to. 

I  am  anxious  to  get  to  Tien  Tsin,  for  I  left  directions 
at  the  Chartered  Bank  of  India.  Australia,  and  China 
to  forward  my  mail  to  their  branch  at  Tien  Tsin, 
and  I  expect  to  get  my  letters  there.  I  had  a  letter  to- 
day from  G.  She  wrote  it  August  8,  and  sent  it 
to  the  steamship  at  San  Francisco.     It  missed  there  and 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  73 

went  flying  around,  finally  catching  me  here.  The  mail 
service,  I  can  tell  you,  is  not  all  that  it  is  cracked  up  to 
be.  I  hope  you  are  getting  your  letters  all  right.  The 
numbers  I  put  on  them  don't  always  jibe,  for  I  forget  from 
day  to  day,  but  I'm  trying  to  keep  them  as  nearly  straight 
as  I  can. 

I'll  say  good-bye  again  for  another  day.  I  am  going 
now  to  the  office  of  the  Sin  Wan  Pao  to  see  if  I  can  catch 
up  a  cable  dispatch  for  to-day.  I  have  been  sending  one 
about  every  day,  and  of  course  you  have  seen  them  and 
know  that  I'm  all  right. 

The  Astor  House,  Shanghai,  Monday,  September 
24th,  being  the  eighth  moon  (intercalary),  first 
day,  26th  year,  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu, 

A  number  of  boats  came  in  yesterday  from  Tien  Tsin 
and  Peking,  and  I  have  had  a  fairly  good  time  to-day, 
looking  at  loot  from  the  Imperial  City.  Everybody  who 
comes  from  there  brings  a  box  of  stolen  goods.  Of 
course  they  don't  say  they  stole  the  stuff,  but  that  they 
bought  it  from  the  people  who  did  steal  it.  You  will  no- 
tice the  distinction.  Perhaps  you  won't  see  the  differ- 
ence. 

It  certainly  was  great  picking-up  there  for  anybody 
who  had  the  nerve  to  steal.  You  see,  everything  was 
stolen.  Houses  were  burned,  banks  were  robbed.  The 
Imperial  Treasury  was  looted  of  something  like  60,000 
tons  of  silver.  Nothing  was  protected  and  every  man 
helped  himself.  The  stuff  I  looked  at  to-day  was  in  the 
shape  of  costly  furs,  like  sable,  ermine,  and  silver  fox,  and 
silks  and  jade.  I  saw  some  silk  from  the  imperial  loom. 
Talk  about  stuff  that  would  stand  alone !  This  would 
stand  anywhere  it  was  put.  It  was  the  finest  silk  I  ever 
laid  my  eyes  upon.  A  silk  man  who  looked  at  it  offered 
$250  a  yard  for  it,  cash.  He  didn't  get  it  because  the 
man  who  had  it  said  he  intended  giving  it  to  his  wife.  I 
suppose  I  saw  $15,000  worth  of  stuff  in  the  possession  of 
just  two  men  who  invited  me  to  look  at  their  trunks.  I 
got  a  jade  ornament  from  one  of  them  and  a  silk  gauze 
robe  from  the  other.  Of  course  I'll  bring  the  things 
home  with  me  when  I  come. 


74  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

I  have  not  learned  yet  whether  my  steamer  leaves  in  the 
morning  or  not.  She  probably  won't  because  she  is  ad- 
vertised to  do  so,  and  nobody  here  would  think  of  break- 
ing a  record  by  doing  anything  when  they  said  they 
would.  I  lunched  to-day  with  the  Deputy  United 
States  Consul,  Mr.  Authur  White,  and  with  a  Mr. 
D.,  the  leading  American  merchant  of  Shanghai. 
They  have  bachelor  quarters.  They  are  both  of  them 
very  good  fellows,  and  have  been  out  here  a  number  of 
years.  White  used  to  be  in  Canton,  where  I  am  going 
before  I  get  back.  That's  the  biggest  city  in  China,  and 
of  course  I  must  see  it.  It  is  up  the  river  from  Hong 
Kong,  which  is  a  British  city. 

The  news  from  the  North  is  getting  good  again.  I 
sent  a  cable  last  night  that  Li  Hung  Chang  sent  to  Sheng, 
here,  from  Tien  Tsin.  He  had  begun  the  work  of  ex-| 
terminating  the  Boxers  and  had  had  a  thousand  of  them 
killed  in  one  town.  That's  the  sort  of  thing  that  will] 
bring  peace,  though  it  sounds  very  warlike.  Get  the 
heathen  fighting  among  themselves,  once,  and  there's  an 
end  of  them.  Things  seem  now  to  be  getting  into  the 
shape  that  will  make  a  settlement  of  the  trouble  easy,  and 
"  chop  chop,"  too.  Well,  I  must  find  whether  my  boat 
goes  in  the  morning.  If  it  does,  I  will  drop  you  a  line 
before  it  leaves. 

Shanghai,  eighth  moon,  second  day  (intercalary), 
26th  year,  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu,  being  Tuesday, 
September  25,  1900. 

My  boat  goes  Peking-way  after  all,  and  now  I  have 
to  hustle.  I've  hardly  more  than  time  to  say  good- 
bye to  you.  I  expect  to  be  in  Port  Arthur, 
Korea,  on  Thursday ;  Chee  Foo,  Friday ;  Tien  Tsin, 
Saturday;  and  Peking  by  the  middle  of  the  week. 
This  is  probably  the  last  letter  you  will  have  from  me  for 
two  weeks  and  perhaps  longer,  for  it  is  going  Vancouver- 
way,  which  is  a  week  or  so  shorter  than  the  route  I  came, 
and  my  letters  from  to-day,  of  course,  won't  be  posted 
until  I  get  North.  Then,  to  catch  the  mail  for  the  States, 
I  suppose  they  will  have  to  come  back  here.  So  if  it 
takes  a  week  to  get  there  it  will  take  a  week  coming  back, 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  75 

all  told,  two  weeks.    See?      Of  course  I'll  continue  to 
write  daily. 

Pardon  the  haste  of  the  note,  but  I  must  be  off. 

On  Board  the  Tung  Chow, 
Wednesday,  September  26,  1900. 

After  all  the  rush  and  all  the  hurry  we  did  not  get 
away  yesterday.  The  Chinese  merchants  are  a  peculiar 
people,  in  that  when  they  have  goods  to  ship  they  abso- 
lutely refuse  to  send  them  to  the  ship  until  the  last 
moment.  That  generally  delays  the  departure.  It  is 
what  happened  with  us.  The  cargo  did  not  come  until  the 
last  minute,  and  there  we  were — stuck.  We  are  off  now 
and  making  our  way  slowly  down  the  Woo  Sung  River 
toward  the  Yellow  Sea,  past  the  men-of-war  of  every 
nation  and  past  the  thousand  and  one  Chinese  junks  that 
are  to  be  seen  on  every  river  in  this  part  of  the  world. 
The  day  is  a  fine  one,  and  the  Captain,  who  is  an  English- 
man, promises  to  land  us  at  Port  Arthur,  our  first  stop, 
in  two  days  and  a  half.  You  never  can  tell,  though,  what 
Yellow  Sea  weather  is  going  to  be,  and  it  may  start  in 
badly  at  any  time. 

The  Tung  Chozv  is  a  small  boat.  She  carries  about 
thirty  passengers,  and  most  of  them  are  refugees  from 
Tien  Tsin,  who  left  there  either  before  or  after  the  bom- 
bardment. There  are  three  Sisters  of  Mercy  who  are 
going  north  to  become  nurses.  They  are  French  Cath- 
olics. Then  there  are  two  married  women  whose  hus- 
bands sent  them  away  when  the  fighting  began  around 
Tien  Tsin,  and  who,  now  that  it  is  over,  are  going  back. 
They  each  have  children  with  them.  Then  there  is 
another  lady,  a  sister  of  one  of  the  married  women,  who 
also  fled  from  Tien  Tsin.  Among  the  men  passengers  there 
are  three  civil  engineers  who  took  part  in  the  defense  of 
the  town,  a  few  merchants  from  London,  and  a  lot  of 
Russians  and  Italians  who  were  also  in  the  town  and  took 
part  in  the  fighting.  They  are  telling  some  great  stories 
about  the  happenings  there,  and  I  guess  they  really  must 
have  had  a  very  hard  time.  They  killed  thousands  of  the 
Chinese. 

Well,  so  much  for  the  passengers  and  so  much  for  the 


76  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

Tung  Chozi\  Now  as  for  myself.  I'm  O.  K.  of  course, 
suffering-  only  from  the  usual  complaint,  a  longing  for 
a  sight  of  you  and  of  the  little  ones  and  the  old  folks. 

S.  S.  Tung  Chow,  Yellow  Sea, 

Thursday,  September  2y,  1900. 

If  my  recollection  is  good  I  told  you  in  my  letter  yester- 
day that  you  could  never  tell  about  the  Yellow  Sea,  and 
that  it  was  liable  to  kick  up  tantrums  at  any  time.  Well, 
I  guess  I  must  have  been  a  mind-reader.  Starting  at 
midnight,  last  night,  and  counting  to  the  present  writing, 
getting  worse  all  the  time,  she  has  been  doing  nothing 
but  kick  up  tamtrums,  and  the  old  Tung  Chow  has  been 
doing  nothing  but  stand  first  on  one  end  and  then  on  the 
other.  Of  the  thirty  passengers,  that  man  B.,  the 
cinemetograph  man  I  told  you  about  in  some  of  my 
Shanghai  letters,  and  myself  were  the  only  ones  who 
showed  up  at  the  table  to-day.  Even  the  Captain  was 
seasick,  and  he  admitted  it.  The  Tung  Chow  hasn't  a 
heavy  load,  so  she  is  bobbing  about  on  the  waves  a  great 
deal  like  a  cork.  Every  now  and  then  a  wave  comes 
smashing  over  the  bow  with  noise  enough  to  make  you 
think  the  whole  ship  is  going  to  pieces,  and  then  the 
water  runs  down  the  deck,  a  foot  or  so  deep,  while  from 
every  cabin  come  the  whoops  and  moans  of  the  seasick, 
and  the  expression,  now  and  then,  by  someone,  of  the 
strong  desire  to  quit  this  mundane  sphere,  that  you  re- 
member Henry  Ward  Beecher  once  acknowledged. 

Besides  the  tough  man  B.  from  England,  and 
myself,  the  only  persons  who  are  not  sick  are  the  chil- 
dren. I  just  heard  one  of  the  little  girls  say  to  a  married 
woman,  her  aunt,  "  Auntie,  have  you  give  up  your  sick? 
Mamma  has  give  up  her  sick,  and  she  feels  better  now." 
And  Auntie  replied,  "  Yes,  darling,  Auntie  has  given  up 
her  sick,  but  she  is  going  to  give  up  some  more."  Judg- 
ing from  the  sounds  that  immediately  ensued,  she  did, 
too,  with  a  vengeance. 

I  have  been  spending  most  of  the  day  upon  the  upper 
deck,  where  the  waves  don't  come,  but  the  spray  does,  and 
I've  been  watching  things  from  there.  I  have  enjoyed  it,  if 
nobody  else  has,  thanks  to  the  solidity  of  my  stomach. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  77 

The  sea  has  been  so  heavy  that  the  Tung  Chozv  has  made 
practically  no  headway,  and,  a  day  out  of  port,  we  are 
already  a  day  late.  I  certainly  hope  it  clears  up  to- 
morrow. While  I  don't  mind  the  sea,  I  do  mind  the 
delay. 

Saturday,  September  29, 
On  Board  Tung  Chow. 

My  prognostication  of  yesterday  was  correct.  It  is 
II  o'clock  in  the  morning-,  now,  and  we  are  in  sight  of 
Port  Arthur.  We  shall  probably  be  inside  the  light  in  a 
couple  of  hours,  and  on  shore  in  a  couple  more.  The  sea 
is  smooth  as  glass,  and  all  the  people  who  were  so  sick, 
Thursday  and  yesterday,  that  they  had  determined  to 
die,  are  alive  and  kicking  and  eating  the  ship  out  of 
house  and  home  this  morning.  It's  funny,  isn't  it,  how 
foolish  people  are  when  they  get  sick  at  the  stomach  ? 
We  had  full  tables,  this  morning,  and  everybody  was  as 
hungry  as  a  bear. 

I  hope  we  don't  have  any  trouble  here  getting  lighters, 
so  that  we  can  unload  quickly  and  start  off  without  delay 
for  the  gate  of  the  Chinese  heaven.  I  discovered  to-day 
that  besides  the  thirty  Europeans  and  Americans,  we 
have  on  board  something  like  fifty  first  cabin  Chinese 
passengers.  On  these  ships  running  on  the  China  coast 
they  have  two  first  classes,  one  European  and  one 
Chinese.  The  price  in  the  European  cabin  is  40  taels. 
A  tael  is  about  $1.33,  Mexican.  The  price  in  the 
Chinese  first  class  is  only  10  taels.  They  travel  about 
as  well  as  we  do,  and  they  do  it  for  about  one-fourth  as 
much.  It  is  no  wonder  that  they  can  carry  on  business 
cheaper  than  we  can. 

Sunday,  September  17,  in  Port  Arthur,  sixth  day, 
eighth  moon    (intercalary),  26th   year,  H.   I.   M. 
Kuang  Hsu,  in  Shanghai.      In  other  words,  Sun- 
day, September  30,  1900,  in  Brooklyn,  N.  Y, 
If  these  calendars  keep  on  changing  out  here  I  shall 
surely  get  mixed.     When   I  got  ashore  this  morning  I 
found  that  the  Russians  had  a  calendar  of  their  own,  and 
it's  thirteen  days  behind  ours.     Wouldn't  it  jar  you?     I 
made  a  note  of  the  day  quick,  so  I  shouldn't  make  any 


78  ORDERED    TO   CHINA 

mistake  and  miss  the  steamer.  She  was  billed  to  sail  at 
II  o'clock  in  the  morning.  It  was  about  6  o'clock  when 
I  went  ashore  with  a  number  of  the  other  passengers. 

There  is  not  much  to  tell  you  about  in  Port  Arthur. 
As  I  said  in  my  letter  yesterday,  it  is  in  the  hands  of  the 
Russians.  That  fact  was  responsible  for  an  incident. 
The  Russians  have  erected  tremendous  fortifications  here. 
They  don't  seem  to  want  any  more  communication  with 
the  outside  world  than  is  absolutely  necessary,  and  for 
that  reason  no  ship  can  enter  the  harbor  without  first 
asking  permission.  When  we  arrived  off  the  harbor  we 
anchored  and  waited.  A  quarantine  officer  came  aboard 
and  examined  us,  and  we  sent  by  him  our  request  to  go 
into  port.  Then  we  waited  at  least  three  hours,  after 
which  a  very  drunken  old  man  who  said  he  was  the  pilot 
came  out  and  he  told  us  it  was  all  right  and  to  go  ahead  in. 
So  we  up  anchor  and  started.  Well,  we  went  just  about 
a  hundred  yards  when  there  was  great  commotion  up  on 
a  hill  where  there  is  a  battery  of  big  guns,  and  in  about 
two  minutes  a  set  of  flag  signals  was  run  up,  saying, 
"  Stop  where  you  are."  That  was  a  pretty  mess !  We 
signaled  with  flags  to  know  what  the  trouble  was,  and 
up  went  their  signals  again,  "  Stop  where  you  are."  So 
we  had  to  anchor  and  we  waited  another  two  or  three 
hours  before,  finally.  His  Imperial  Majesty  the  Czar 
made  up  his  mind  that  he'd  let  us  in.  Then  he  put  up  the 
signals,  "  You  may  enter  the  port."  Of  course  we  up 
anchor  again  and  trotted  in.  But  it  was  nearly  6  o'clock 
and  was  getting  dark,  so  it  was  too  late  for  any  of  us  to 
go  ashore,  and  we  had  to  wait  until  this  morning. 

This  morning  I  tramped  all  over  the  place.  There  is 
practically  nothing  to  tell  you  about  it  that  would  interest 
you.  The  Russians  own  everything.  The  harbor  is  full 
of  warships  and  the  place  is  full  of  soldiers  who  are 
bound  for  China,  though  Russia  says  she  is  going  to 
withdraw  her  troops  from  there.  We  were  all  on  board 
the  Tung  Chozv  again  at  ii  o'clock  and  away  we  sailed 
for  Taku  and  Tien  Tsin,  where  I'll  mail  this  letter.  To 
convince  you  that  I'm  not  deceiving  you  about  the  situa- 
tion here  I  send  you  by  this  mail  a  Port  Arthur  paper.  I 
fenow  you  will  enjoy  reading  it.     I  can't  give  you  any 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  79 

instructions  as  to  how  to  begin,  but  from  the  appearance 
of  it  I  think  it  will  be  necessary  to  stand  on  your  head  to 
do  it. 

Taku,  Monday,  October  i,  seventh  day,  eighth  moon 
(intercalary),  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

Thank  goodness,  I'm  rid  of  that  Russian  calendar, 
anyway,  and  I've  only  the  Chinese  and  the  American 
to  look  after  now.  I  have  at  least  reached  the  Gate  of 
Heaven,  and  if  it  don't  look  like  the  gate  of  the  other 
place  I'll  eat  my  hat,  dust-covered  and  dirty  as  it  is.  The 
Tung  Chow  had  a  fine  trip  across  the  Gulf  of  Pechili  and 
we  came  in  sight  of  the  warships  off  Taku  at  4  o'clock 
this  morning.  I  tell  you  it  was  a  great  sight.  There 
were  American  and  English  and  Japanese  and  French 
and  German  and  Russian  and  Austrian  and  Italian  war- 
ships, and  I  don't  know  what  else,  and  besides  the  war- 
ships there  were  twenty-five  or  thirty  transports  that  had 
brought  soldiers  or  supplies  over  here.  All  told,  there 
must  have  been  more  than  150  ships  anchored  outside  the 
Taku  bar.  Every  nationality  that  is  a  nationality 
was  represented.  Our  chief  ship  was  the  old  Brooklyn, 
which  was  Rear-Admiral  Schley's  flagship  off  Santiago. 
Taku  being  under  the  rule  of  the  Joint  Powers,  it  was 
necessary  for  us  to  report  ourselves  to  the  boss  boat  of 
the  fleet,  which  this  morning  happened  to  be  a  Britisher, 
and  ask  permission  to  enter  the  harbor.  They  were  not 
like  the  Russians  at  Port  Arthur,  and  we  got  the  per- 
mission quickly. 

There  was  only  nine  feet  of  water  on  the  bar,  and  we 
were  drawing  ten,  but  the  pilot  said  the  mud  was  soft  and 
we  could  dig  our  way  through  and  up  to  Tong  Kue,  the 
place  where  the  railroad  to  Tien  Tsin,  the  Gate  of 
Heaven,  ends.  It  was  a  mighty  stiff  dig,  too,  and  two 
or  three  times  we  thought  we  would  be  stuck,  along  with 
three  or  four  other  boats  that  had  tried  and  couldn't  and 
were  fast  on  the  bar,  but  we  made  it  all  right.  We  went 
ashore  in  Sampans  and  made  for  the  railroad  station. 
This  was  about  10  o'clock  and  the  first  train  to  the  Gate 
of  Heaven  did  not  leave  until  12,  The  Russians  have 
entire  charge  of  the  railroad  and  the  railroad  property. 


80  ORDEREDTOCHINA 

Chinese  coolies  were  thicker  than  flies,  and  about  as 
troublesome,  and  half  a  dozen  times  while  we  were  wait- 
ing the  Russians  had  to  unbuckle  their  belts  and  use  them 
as  whips  to  beat  the  coolies  away.  They  licked  them 
good  and  hard,  but  somehow  the  heathen  didn't  seem  to 
mind  it.  They'd  run  when  the  Russians  got  after  them, 
but  when  the  chase  was  over  and  the  Russians  had 
buckled  up  again  they  would  be  back  as  big  as  life. 
They  didn't  seem  particularly  to  resent  the  beating, 
either. 

You  know  that  I  like  fast  railroad  trains.  Well, 
you  will  realize  how  much  I  enjoyed  the  trip  to 
Tien  Tsin  when  I  tell  you  that  the  distance  from  Tong 
Kue  is  twenty-eight  miles,  and  it  took  three  hours  to 
travel  it.  And  I  can  say  right  here  that  I  don't  believe 
I  ever  realized  what  real  war  was  until  this  journey  was 
started.  If  ever  a  country  was  devastated  this  country, 
at  least  this  part  of  this  country,  has  been.  Our  soldiers 
started  in  to  punish  the  Chinese,  and  if  destruction  of 
property  is  a  punishment  to  them  the  soldiers  certainly 
did  their  business  well.  We  passed  village  after  village 
in  that  twenty-eight  miles,  where  all  that  was  left  were 
rows  of  mud  walls  that  had  once  helped  to  make  homes. 
The  roofs  were  gone  and  the  interiors  were  burned. 
The  walls  were  standing  because  they  would  not  burn. 
That's  all.  There  wasn't  a  living  soul  left  in  any  of  the 
villages  where  thousands  had  lived.  The  fields  had  been 
swept  like  the  villages.  Everything  was  burned  brown 
and  dry. 

The  only  things  that  relieved  the  monotony  were  the 
grave  mounds  that  dotted  the  face  of  the  flat  and  barren 
country.  I  have  already  told  you  how  the  Chinese  bury 
their  dead.  These  mounds,  of  course,  were  old.  Some 
of  them,  perhaps,  were  more  than  a  century  old.  The 
thousands  of  Chinese  who  were  killed  by  the  allied  forces 
in  the  march  to  Tien  Tsin  and  Pekin  found  no  graves. 
Their  bodies  were  thrown  into  the  river  which  lines  the 
road,  and  there  were  so  many  of  them  that  they  filled  it 
from  bank  to  bank  and  it  was  hard  for  steamboats  to  get 
along.  This  is  not  an  exaggeration,  but  a  very  solemn 
fact. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  81 

The  train  got  up  to  Tien  Tsin  about  3  o'clock  and 
then  all  of  us  (I  mean  my  fellow-passengers  on  the  Tung 
Chow  and  myself)  had  the  greatest  fight  you  ever  saw  to 
get  possession  of  our  baggage.  I  was  a  little  better  off 
than  the  rest  because  at  Tong  Kue  I  had  given  a  cigar  to 
a  Russian  brakenian  of  the  train,  and  when  he  saw  that  I 
was  having  trouble  he  jumped  in  to  help.  There  were 
not  enough  coolies  to  do  the  work  on  the  baggage  and  I 
was  so  modest  that  I  got  left.  This  Russian  grabbed 
two  coolies  who  had  been  hired  by  somebody  else.  They 
yelled  bloody  murder,  but  he  took  them  by  the  pigtails 
and  dashed  them  around  until  they  found  my  bag- 
gage and  got  it  out  for  me.  Then  he  wouldn't  let  me 
pay  them.  They  piled  all  my  stuff  upon  a  wheel- 
barrow and  away  we  trundled  to  the  hotel — another 
Astor  House,  by  the  way. 

The  road  to  the  hotel  is  through  the  French  and  British 
settlements,  and  I  gained  some  idea  of  how  hot  the  bom- 
bardment was  here  when  the  trouble  was  on.  Some  of 
the  houses  were  almost  demolished,  and  there  was  not  one 
that  did  not  have  a  few  holes  in  it.  This  was  all  the  work 
of  the  Chinese.  They  bombarded  Tien  Tsin  twenty-eight 
days  before  our  troops  came  and  relieved  the  place.  It 
was  a  mighty  interesting  walk  to  the  hotel.  The  streets 
were  full  of  soldiers  of  all  nationalities.  You  see,  it  is  a 
regular  military  camp  now.  Well,  to  cut  a  long  story 
short,  I  found  when  I  got  to  the  hotel  that  the  whole 
house  had  been  rented  by  the  Germans  and  there  was  no 
room,  so  all  this  afternoon  was  taken  up  with  hunting 
a  place  to  sleep.  I  found  one  to-night  in  the  British 
Consulate.  I  have  a  room  for  one  night  only  on  the 
second  floor.  There  is  not  a  speck  of  furniture  in  it,  but 
I  have  my  army  cot  and  I'll  be  as  snug  as  a  bug  in  a  rug. 
So  endeth  the  story  of  the  day.  Incidentally  I  might  say 
that  the  door  of  the  room  I  am  in  has  twenty-two  bullet 
holes  in  it,  so  this  was  probably  a  pretty  hot  place  during 
the  row. 

Tien  Tsin,  Tuesday,  October  2,  eighth  moon  (inter- 
calary), H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 
This  was  my  day  for  a  genuine  treat.     I  went  to  the 


82  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

Chartered  Bank,  first  thing  this  morning,  and  there  I 
found  all  the  letters  you  had  written  since  I  left  home 
that  had  had  a  chance  to  get  here,  and  I  found  a  fine 
letter  from  H.,  too.  Bless  her  heart!  I  have  already 
told  you  why  I  hadn't  received  any  letters  before,  but 
I'll  repeat  it  here.  You  see  I  was  traveling  west  all  the 
time  and  they  were  traveling  after  me.  They  couldn't 
possibly  catch  up  with  me.  They  lost  time  at  Yokohama, 
for  they  were  addressed  there,  and  they  had  to  wait  there 
until  the  next  mail.  Then  I  had  left  word  there  to  have 
them  forwarded  to  Tien  Tsin,  not  thinking  for  a  moment 
that  I  would  stay  at  Shanghai  the  length  of  time  that  I 
did,  so  there  you  are.  I  can  tell  you  they  were  twice 
welcome  when  I  did  get  them.  I  expect  another  batch 
to-morrow,  when  another  mail  will  probably  get  in. 

Well,  there  isn't  much  to  tell  you  to-day,  except  that  I 
sat  around  the  hotel  that  the  Germans  have  hired,  a  good 
part  of  the  day  and  read  over  your  letters  and  enjoyed 
the  envy  of  a  lot  of  fellows  who  were  not  as  lucky  as  I 
was,  and  who  did  not  have  any  letters.  The  part  of  the 
time  that  I  was  not  doing  that  I  set  about  making  ar- 
rangements to  go  on  to  Peking,  and  then  I  went  around 
and  saw  Mr,  Ragsdale,  the  American  Consul,  and  to- 
night I  am  stopping  at  his  house.  He  has  invited  me  to 
stay  here  as  long  as  I  am  in  Tien  Tsin,  and  I  guess  I'll 
accept  the  invitation.  It's  a  little  out  of  the  way,  but  it 
is  comfortable.  To-morrow  I  am  going  over  to  the 
native  city,  which  I  understand  is  a  spectacle  after  the 
siege.     I'll  write  you  about  it  after  the  visit. 

Tien  TsiN",  Wednesday,  October  3,  eighth  day,  eighth 
moon  (intercalary),  26th  year,  H.  I.  M.  Kuang 
Hsu. 

I  have  just  come  back  from  my  trip  to  the  native  city  of 
Tien  Tsin,  and  the  sight  that  I  saw  there  was 
simply  beyond  description.  In  my  letter  Monday  I  told 
you  something  of  the  destruction  that  was  wrought  by 
the  allied  forces  in  the  villages  on  the  march  from  Taku 
to  this  place.  Well,  what  happened  in  those  villages 
happened  here,  but  the  sight  here  is  much  more  impres- 
sive because  Tien  Tsin  was  a  big  city.    More  than  a 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  83 

million  people  lived  here.  The  city  covered  a  great 
extent  of  territory.  It  was  as  big,  I  should  say,  as  old 
New  York,  and  it  was  smashed  to  smithereens.  For 
every  dollar  of  damage  done  to  the  European  and  Ameri- 
can property  in  the  foreign  quarter  of  Tien  Tsin,  there 
must  certainly  have  been  a  thousand  dollars  damage  done 
in  the  native  city.  The  city  is  walled,  and  all  that  is  left 
standing  of  it  is  the  wall,  and  even  that  is  smashed  to  bits 
in  places.  At  the  time  of  the  destruction  all  of  the  Chinese 
who  could  escape  did  so.  Those  who  couldn't  were  killed, 
and  their  bodies  were  thrown  into  the  sluggish  river  that 
flows  through  the  place.  Since  the  destruction  the  Chi- 
nese who  ran  away  have  come  back,  and  they  are  at  work 
now,  trying  to  rebuild  what  was  destroyed.  They  have 
several  years  of  work  before  them. 

There  were  four  of  us  in  the  party  that  visited  the  city. 
The  place,  of  course,  is  policed  by  soldiers  of  the  various 
nations,  and  is  perfectly  safe.  We  went  in  at  a  gate  which 
was  in  charge  of  the  Japs,  and  we  rode  in  our  'rickshas 
through  the  streets,  the  houses  on  each  side  of  which 
had  been  burned.  The  streets  were  literally  thronged 
with  people.  The  great  majority  were  Chinese,  but  every 
nation  under  the  sun  was  represented.  Here  and  there 
we  would  meet  a  Chinese  sawmill — that  is,  two  men 
with  a  buzz-saw,  cutting  up  logs  for  building  purposes. 
From  behind  the  shattered  walls  that  were  left  standing 
we  could  see  miserable  Chinese  women  and  naked  children, 
peering  at  us  and  yelling  and  screaming.  Here  and  there 
a  stove  had  been  put  up,  and  cooking  was  going 
on  inside,  while  in  front  of  these  places  would  be  huge 
tubs  of  fried  grasshoppers  and  cockroaches,  which  are 
both  esteemed  great  delicacies  by  the  Chinese. 

In  about  the  center  of  the  city  we  ran  across  a  place 
that  we  dubbed  the  Thieves'  Exchange.  Thousands  of 
Chinese  there  had  little  'Stands  piled  high  with  silks  and 
furs  and  jade,  which  they  offered  for  sale.  Their  stuff 
was  all  stolen  by  them  ir  the  looting  of  the  city.  It  was 
part  of  the  loot.  You  know  that  when  the  soldiers  got 
in  here  they  looted  the  whole  place  and  took  every- 
thing of  value  in  sight  or  reach.  Well,  I  find  that  they 
had  only  the  leavings.     The  Chinese  had  looted  on  their 


84  ORDEREDTOCHINA 

own  hook  before  the  allies  entered  the  city,  and  now  the 
stuff  they  stole  from  each  other  is  being  sold  by  them. 
The  buyers  are  mostly  foreigners,  of  course. 

The  trip  through  the  city  would  have  been  more  inter- 
esting had  it  not  been  for  the  frightful  odors  that  filled 
the  air.  The  place  smelled  to  heaven,  like  all  Chinese 
cities,  and  I  was  glad  enough  to  get  out  of  it,  I  can  tell 
you.  I'm  going  back  again,  however,  to-morrow,  to 
watch  the  administration  of  justice  for  a  day,  and  then 
write  a  piece  about  it.     I  guess  that  completes  the  day. 

Tien  Tsin,  Thursday,  October  5,  being  the  eighth 
moon  (intercalary),  twelfth  day,  26th  year,  H.  I, 
M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

This  letter  to-day  is  going  to  be  a  very  short  one,  for 
I  am  tired  out.  That  is  one  reason.  Another  is  that  I 
have  written  to  Father  and  Mother,  and  I  have  said  to  them 
about  all  there  is  to  say.  That's  another  reason.  The 
third  is  that  I  have  just  finished  a  story  of  two  or  three 
columns  for  The  Sun,  and  I'm  tired  of  writing.  Now, 
isn't  that  a  sufficiency  of  excuses  ?  You  can  get  the  day's 
happenings  either  from  Father  and  Mother's  letter,  or, 
if  you  would  prefer  it  in  detail,  then  you  can  read  it  in  The 
Sim,  about  the  Sunday  after  you  receive  this  letter,  I 
think.  All  that  I've  got  to  say  now  is  that  I  am 
thinking  of  you  and  the  babies  almost  constantly, 
and  wishing  that  I  could  get  back  and  be  with  you  for  a 
while. 

Tien  Tsin,  Friday,  October  6,  1900.     In  other  words, 
thirteenth  day,  eighth  moon,  26th  year,  H.  I.  M. 
Kuang  Hsu,  the  same  being  the  Son  of  Heaven, 
etc. 
I  don't  know  whether  or  not  you  want  to  know  any 
more  about  Tien  Tsin  than  I  have  already  written.     I  can 
tell  you  I  wish  I  knew  a  little  less.    I  think  of  all  the  bad 
places  in  the  world  this  is  about  the  worst,  and  they  call 
it  the  Gate  of  Heaven,  too.    To  begin  with,  it  is  the  dirti- 
est place  that  I  have  ever  seen,  and  that  is  saying  a  good 
deal.     The  roads  are  all  of  dirt,  and  the  constant  traffic 
over  them  raises  a  cloud  of  dirt  and  dust  that  almost 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  85 

chokes  one  to  death.  A  half-hour  in  the  street  and  you 
blow  a  peck  of  dirt  from  your  nostrils,  and  you  cough  up 
a  bushel,  besides.  Every  little  gust  of  wind  raises  a 
blinding  cloud  that  shuts  out  everything  that  is  as  much 
as  a  hundred  yards  away.  The  people  go  around  chok- 
ing and  coughing  and  spitting  in  a  manner  that  makes 
you  think  the  town  is  a  town  of  consumptives.  Yet  they 
say  the  place  is  healthy.  Maybe  it  is,  but  I  don't  see  how 
it  can  be.  It  is  a  fact,  nevertheless,  that  in  the  week  I 
have  been  here  I  have  enjoyed  perfect  health.  By  the 
way,  that  is  all  I  have  enjoyed.  The  food  is  abominable. 
I  think  I  told  you  that  I  have  been  sleeping  at  the  Ameri- 
can Consulate.  Well,  I  have  been  eating  at  the  Astor 
House,  and  that  is  a  heap  sight  worse.  I  wouldn't  mind 
it  so  much  if  it  was  cheap,  but  it  is  about  the  most  ex- 
pensive place  I  have  ever  been  in.  For  breakfast — it  is 
the  same  every  morning — two  fried  eggs  and  a  piece  of 
bacon  as  thick  as  a  piece  of  paper,  the  whole  fried  in 
grease,  and  one  cup  of  coffee — price,  $i.  For  tiffin  and 
for  dinner,  the  bill  of  fare  is  just  about  the  same,  but  the 
price  is  $2  each.  This  will  probably  convince  you  that 
I  am  not  staying  here  because  I  want  to. 

I  have  been  busy  practically  all  my  time,  and  that 
has  been  a  great  help  to  me.  I  have  been  going  to  bed 
early,  too,  and  getting  up  early  in  the  morning.  I  have 
bought  some  little  trinkets  for  you  and  the  kids,  but  there 
is  no  way  to  send  them  home  on  account  of  the  customs, 
and  I  have  packed  them  away  in  my  baggage  for  my 
home-coming.  This  much  information  will  whet  all  your 
appetites,  so  I  won't  tell  you  anything  more  about  them 
at  present,  and  will  let  all  of  you  begin  a  guessing  contest. 
The  one  who  guesses  nearest  will  get  an  extra  present. 
Don't  put  in  all  your  time  guessing,  but  the  plan  may  help 
to  while  away  some  weary  evenings  and  at  the  same 
time  may  induce  you  to  think  occasionally  of  the  poor 
old  man  off  here  among  the  heathen  Chinee. 

There  isn't  anything  in  particular  to  tell  you  about 
to-day,  and  an  old  rule  among  Sun  men  is  never 
to  write  anything  unless  you  have  something  to  write 
about.  I'm  afraid  I  haven't  been  following  it  lately,  as 
far  as  your  letters  are  concerned,  but  be  patient,  be  pa- 


86  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

tient.    Keep  on  reading  what  I  send  you,  and  out  of  the 
lot  you  may  occasionally  glean  a  gem  of  thought. 

Tien  Tsin,  Saturday,  October  7th,  in  the  year  of  our 
Lord  1900,  and  of  Kuang  Hsu,  the  heathen  Chi- 
nee, the  26th,  being  the  eighth  moon  (intercalary) 
of  that  year  and  the  fourteenth  day  of  the  afore- 
said moon. 
I  understand  that  the  next  mail  to  the  United  States 
will   leave  here   Monday,   going  direct  to  Nagasaki,   so 
probably  you  will  get  this  batch  of  letters  a  little  quicker 
than  I  expected.     The  United  States  has  established  a 
military  postoffice  here,  and  I  am  going  to  patronize  it 
because  the  mail  is  put  in  a  bag  there  and  it  is  never 
opened  until  it  reaches  San  Francisco.     There  is,  there- 
fore, no  monkeying  with  the  letters.     Monkeying  with 
letters  is  an  old  Chinese  trick,  and  if  any  of  the  letters  I 
have  written  you  have  gone  astray  the  Chinese  are  prob- 
ably responsible.    I  hope,  however,  that  none  of  them  has 
gone  astray,  and  that  you  have  received  them  all,  not' be- 
cause any  of  them  are  particularly  interesting,  but  be- 
cause I  want  you  to  knovv'  that  I  can  keep  a  promise  when 
I  make  it — savey? 

I  have  been  monkeying  around  most  of  the  day  to-day 
with  the  Quartermaster's  department,  trying  to  arrange 
for  a  passage  up  the  Pao  River  to  Peking.  I  think  I 
have  it  fixed,  and  that  I  will  get  away  to-morrow  or  Mon- 
day at  the  latest.  It  is  an  eight-day  trip.  You  see,  they 
don't  have  steamboats  in  this  country,  and  if  they  did 
they  wouldn't  be  of  much  use  because  the  river  is  so  shal- 
low. The  boats  are  pulled  up  the  river  by  the  coolies. 
They  hitch  a  rope  to  the  top  of  the  mast,  and  then  six  of 
them  get  hold  of  it  and  walk  along  the  shore,  dragging 
the  boat  after  them.  They  make  about  two  miles  an 
hour  when  they  are  not  tired,  and  about  half  a  mile 
an  hour  when  they  are.  You  can  imagine  what  a  tedious 
trip  it  must  be.  It  is  one  of  those  things,  though,  that 
have  to  be  done,  so  the  quicker  it  is  over  the  quicker  it  will 
be  done. 

Li  Hung  Chang  started  up  the  river  two  days  ago  with 
his  servants.     There  were  twenty-six  boatloads  of  them 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  87 

all  told,  and  they  were  all  pulled  by  coolies,  as  I  have  de- 
scribed. Once  he  gets  there  the  chance  of  a  reasonably, 
quick  peace  is  assured,  for,  as  I  cabled  the  other  day,  Tuan 
and  the  other  Boxers  in  the  Chinese  royal  family  have 
been  disciplined,  and  in  all  probability  their  heads  will  be 
cut  off  at  the  proper  time.  By  the  way,  I  suppose  that  D. 
has  called  on  you.  I  hope  he  didn't  forget  to  bring  along 
that  roll  of  silk,  and  I  hope  also  that  it  is  a  pretty  pattern. 
I  don't  know  but  that  I  may  be  able  to  gather  up  some 
silk  myself  when  I'm  in  Peking,  and  if  I  can  I  certainly 
shall.  If  I  don't,  why  I'm  going  to  bring  home  a  lot 
anyway. 

My  think  tank  is  running  dry,  so  I  guess  I'll  stop. 

Tien  Tsin,  Monday,  October  8,  1900,  fifteenth  day, 
eighth  moon  (intercalary),  26th  year,  Kuang 
Hsu. 

Still  Tien  Tsin.  When  I  wrote  you  last  night  I  had  not 
the  remotest  idea  that  I  would  be  here  at  the  house  of  the 
United  States  Consul  to-night,  but,  as  I  have  learned  to 
my  sorrow,  there  is  nothing  certain  in  this  heathen  land — 
not  even  death  and  taxes.  It  rained  to-day,  and  a  pecu- 
liarity of  the  Chinaman  is  that  he  won't  work  when  it 
rains.  The  result  is  that  the  Quartermaster  could  not 
load  the  boats,  on  one  of  which  I  was  to  sail  Peking-ward, 
and  so  I  am  held  up  another  day.  I  am  promised  now  a 
trip  up  to-morrow  sure,  however,  for  if  a  boat  does  not 
start  then  there  will  be  a  wagon  train  going.  A  wagon 
train  means  about  twenty  wagons,  each  drawn  by  four 
mules,  and  it  will  take  four  and  a  half  days  to  make  the 
trip.  They  can  only  average  about  twenty  miles  a  day 
over  the  Chinese  roads.  It  would  be  a  good  deal  faster  to 
walk,  but  not  so  safe,  and,  anyway,  I  haven't  any  way  to 
get  my  baggage  up,  so  that  I  have  to  go  on  a  transport  of 
some  kind. 

Nothing  at  all  has  transpired  to-day  that  could  in  any 
way  interest  you,  because  nothing  has  transpired  to  in- 
terest me,  and  I  know  that  if  I  am  not  interested  you  can- 
not be — in  afifairs  Chinese,  at  all  events.  Now,  if  I  take 
the  wagon  train  to-morrow  I  shall  have  to  stop  writing 
letters  to  you  until  we  get  up  to  Peking,  for  there  will 


88  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

be  no  place  at  all  to  write.  It  will  be  ride  all  clay  in  a 
jolting  wagon,  and  camp  all  night,  so  it  is  possible  that 
this  will  be  my  last  letter  for  some  days.  When  I  get  up 
there  I  will  tell  you  the  story  of  the  whole  trip  in  one 
letter. 

PEKING,  Saturday,  October  13,  1900,  this  being,  in 
Chinese,  the  twentieth  day  of  the  eighth  moon  of 
the  28th  year  of  His  Imperial  Majesty  Kuang  Hsu, 
Son  of  Heaven,  etc. 

PEKING  at  last !  My  wagon  train  poked  in  here  about 
three  hours  ago,  and  I  have  been  hustling  ever  since  for 
some  place  to  lay  my  weary  head.  Luckily  for  me,  I  got 
thoroughly  well  acquainted  with  Major  Ives,  coming 
across  the  country,  and  now  he  has  come  to  my  rescue 
and  I  am  being  cared  for,  temporarily,  at  least. 

Let  me  give  you  a  bit  of  advice  right  here.  If  you  are 
going  anywhere  at  any  time,  and  you  have  a  chance  to 
go  on  a  government  wagon  train,  don't  go;  walk.  Now, 
that  is  no  reflection  at  all  on  the  wagon  train  or  any  of 
its  component  parts,  nor  is  it  to  say  that  I  haven't  had  a 
bully  good  time,  for  I  have;  but  you  just  take  my  advice 
and  walk.     I  think  you  would  have  a  better  time. 

In  my  last  letter  to  you,  written,  if  my  recollection 
serves  me,  on  Monday  (by  the  way,  I  forgot  to  mail  it, 
and  you  will  get  it  along  with  this  one),  I  promised  to 
tell  you  of  this  trip  to  Peking  in  detail,  and  while  I'm  in 
another  man's  quarters,  writing  at  another  man's  table, 
and  sitting  in  another  man's  chair,  which  he  may  come 
in  and  claim  at  any  time,  I  will  proceed  to  fulfill  my 
promise  to  the  best  of  my  ability  and  to  the  best  of  my 
recollection.  As  a  preface,  and  to  make  up  for  any  short- 
coming, I  may  say  that  it  seems  to  me  to  be  about  four 
years  and  a  half  since  I  started  from  the  Gate  of  Heaven 
to  reach  here,  and  I've  been  coming  all  the  time. 

Well,  to  proceed.  I  was  snapped  up  by  General  Hum- 
phrey about  noon  on  Thursday.  General  Humphrey  is  the 
Chief  Quartermaster,  and  as  such  has  charge  of  the 
transportation.  "Well,  Sport,"  said  he,  "that  wagon 
train  is  loading  now,  and  if  you  get  around  in  about  fif- 
teen minutes  you  can  start  for  Peking."    To  put  it  mildly, 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  89 

that  made  me  hump.  Fifteen  minutes,  a  mile  from  the 
place  where  my  baggage  was,  and  some  of  it  still  un- 
packed!  I  jumped  into  a  'ricksha  and  beat  the  China- 
man all  the  way  to  the  house,  yelling  "  chop,  chop  "  at 
him  as  we  went,  just  to  get  some  life  into  his  weary  bones. 
He  made  that  mile  quicker  than  he  ever  made  a  mile  before 
in  his  life,  and  I  jumped  out  and  tumbled  my  stuff  into 
my  trunk  and  bags,  any  old  way  (it  took  me  less  than  a 
minute  by  the  clock),  and  got  coolies  to  carry  it  down- 
stairs and  load  it  in  the  'ricksha.  Then  it  was  a  dash 
back  to  Humphrey's.  Then,  sad  to  relate,  it  was  a  wait 
of  three  hours  for  that  blessed  old  wagon  train. 

Well,  I  put  in  the  time  going  out  and  buying  some 
grub,  and  then  in  getting  acquainted  with  my  companions 
for  the  trip.  There  was  our  old  friend  B.,  about 
whom  I  have  told  you — you  remember,  the  cinemetograph 
man.  He  had  permission  to  go.  Then  there  was  a  captain 
in  the  English  army,  who  was  already  weeping  tears  of 
anguish  because  he  was  afraid  he  would  reach  Peking 
too  late  to  go  on  an  expedition  to  Pao  Ting,  where  he 
could  engage  in  that  occupation  of  looting  which  is  the 
stronghold  of  the  English  army.  Then  there  was  a  mis- 
sionary who  wanted  to  get  back  to  Peking  and  join  his 
flock  of  heathen.  We  all  got  fairly  well  acquainted  in 
that  wait  of  three  hours,  and  I  might  have  been  happy 
had  it  not  been  for  the  fact  that  about  every  seven  min- 
utes I  would  think  of  something  that  I  had  forgotten 
and  that  I  dared  not  go  back  to  get,  for  the  train  would 
be  here  "  any  minute." 

Finally  it  did  come — twenty  wagons  in  a  row,  all 
loaded  to  the  tops,  and  all  covered  over  with  canvas.  You 
have  heard  of  prairie  schooners.  Well,  that  is  what  these 
were.  Four  mules  to  a  wagon,  pulling,  and  one  mule  on 
the  seat,  driving.  The  whole  shooting-match  lined  up 
in  front  of  the  Quartermaster's  office,  and  then  it  was 
discovered  that  the  Wagonmastcr,  that  is,  the  boss  of  the 
train,  was  boiling  drunk  and  he  couldn't  go.  There  was 
another  wait  of  half  an  hour  until  a  substitute  who  was 
sober  could  be  found,  and  who,  mounted  on  a  trusty  mule, 
gave  the  word  to  go.  Each  of  the  guests  whom  I  have 
mentioned  were  assigned  to  wagons,  the  last  four  in  the 


90  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

procession.  I  had  the  first  of  the  four,  and  cHmbed  up  on 
the  seat  beside  the  driver,  who  turned  out  to  be  an  old 
Sixth  Calvary  man,  with  a  supreme  disgust  for  mule- 
drivers  generally,  and  this  particular  bunch  of  mule- 
drivers  in  particular.     However,  of  him  later. 

The  long  whips  cracked  like  pistol  shots,  and  we  were 
off  on  the  first  of  Uncle  Sam's  mule  trains  to  travel 
through  China  without  an  escort.  We  had  no  guard  of 
any  kind,  and  only  ten  or  a  dozen  rifles  in  the  lot,  though 
all  of  us  had  pistols.  The  train,  as  it  stood  with  its  load, 
was  worth  in  the  neighborhood  of  $200,000,  so  you  see 
the  whole  thing  was  more  or  less  interesting,  not  to  say 
exciting.  Our  road  lay  through  the  ruined  city  of  Tien 
Tsin,  and  away  we  went  in  that  direction.  It  was  curious 
to  watch  the  wondering  faces  of  the  Chinese  as  we  drove 
along.  A  Chinese  horse  is  about  as  big  as  a  Shetland 
pony.  A  Chinese  mule  isn't  any  bigger  than  a  couple  of- 
medium-sized  St.  Bernard  dogs,  and  a  Chinese  cart  rs 
just  big  enough  to  hold  one  man.  Here  was  a  train  of 
huge  wagons,  each  big  enough  to  make  half  a  dozen; 
Chinese  carts,  drawn  by  four  mules,  each  as  big  as  three 
ordinary  Chinese  mules,  or  two  ordinary  Chinese  ponies. 
As  we  rode  along,  the  Chinamen  pouring  out  from  the 
doorways  of  the  ruined  houses  would  hold  up  one  finger 
and  say,  with  voices  full  of  admiration,  "  Number  one, 
number  one !  "  at  the  same  time  pointing  at  the  mules. 
They  meant  that  they  were  the  best  mules  and  the  best 
wagons  they  had  ever  seen.  I  noticed  that  they  would 
always  dodge  when  they  saw  a  wagon  with  a  gun  on  it, 
which  was  a  good  sign  that  they  had  not  lost  the  whole- 
some regard  for  firearms  that  had  been  instilled  in  them 
by  the  visit  of  the  allied  forces  to  their  town. 

Once  out  of  the  city  of  Tien  Tsin  we  struck  a  broad 
plain.  The  country  was  perfectly  flat,  like  our  prairies 
in  the  West,  but  unlike  them  in  that  it  was  not  rolling. 
It  was  flat  like  a  billiard  table,  and  there  was  not  a  hum- 
mock in  sight  anywhere.  We  had  been  going  not  more 
than  half  an  hour  when  I  noticed  some  of  the  most  pecu- 
liar clouds  I  ever  saw.  They  were  a  long  distance  off, 
and  they  looked  speckled,  and,  strangely  enough,  they 
seemed  to  circle  around,  although  they  always  moved 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  91 

forward  in  one  direction.  The  sun  was  setting  and  the 
sky  was  a  brilliant  red  that  set  off  these  supposed  clouds 
in  most  striking-  manner.  The  direction  that  they  were 
moving  was  toward  us,  and  the  specks  got  larger  every 
minute,  but  it  was  fully  fifteen  minutes  before  we  dis- 
covered that  they  were  not  clouds  at  all,  but  were  wild 
ducks.  There  seemed  to  be  millions  of  them,  mil- 
lions upon  millions,  as  they  came  circling  around  and 
around,  but  always  moving  on.  I  have  seen  many  flocks 
of  birds  in  my  life,  but  never  had  I  seen  any  to  compare 
with  these.  It  was  just  dusk,  and  in  the  gathering  dark- 
ness they  again  seemed  to  be  clouds.  The  flock  took 
peculiar  formations.  They  looked  like  clouds  that  were 
torn  by  the  wind.  Do  you  see  what  I  mean?  There 
would  be  a  few  hundred  birds  in  the  lead,  then  a  few 
thousand  forming  the  body  of  the  cloud,  and  then  they 
would  taper  off  to  a  few  stragglers,  and  the  whole  mass 
would  circle  and  change  formation  until  it  seemed  certain 
that  there  was  a  gale  above  and  it  was  whipping  the 
black  clouds  about  at  will. 

But  here,  I  guess  you  have  had  enough  of  that,  and  I 
will  proceed  to  our  first  stopping  place,  which  was  Piet 
Sang.  That  is  a  town  about  ten  miles  out  of  Tien  Tsin, 
and  is  on  the  bank  of  the  Peiho  River.  The  river  is 
crossed  there  on  a  pontoon  bridge.  That  is,  a  bridge 
made  entirely  of  boats  floating  in  the  water.  It  is  only 
wide  enough  for  one  wagon  to  cross,  and  that  only  with 
the  most  careful  driving  and  with  plenty  of  light  to  see. 
There  was  an  English  camp  on  one  side  of  the  river,  and 
a  Japanese  camp  on  the  other.  When  we  hauled  up,  our 
friend  the  English  Captain  went  to  the  English  officer 
in  command,  who  was  a  young  Lieutenant  from  India, 
and  made  himself  known.  The  Lieutenant  was  all  right, 
and  he  insisted  that  B.  and  myself  should  come  up 
and  have  something  to  eat  with  him — a  welcome  invita- 
tion, I  assure  you,  for  we  had  had  nothing  since  breakfast, 
and  it  was  well  on  toward  9  o'clock.  Then  the  Eng- 
lishman went  further.  After  filling  us  up  with  eggs  and 
bacon,  and  canned  peaches,  and  coffee,  he  insisted  that 
B.  and  myself  should  bring  our  cots  up  to  his  tent 
and  sleep  there.     That  was  a  heap  better  than  sleeping 


92  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

out  of  doors,  and  we  accepted  the  invitation.  So  passed 
the  first  night  without  event. 

The  orders  were,  to  get  away  at  4  o'clock  in  the 
morning,  and  at  half-past  three  we  were  up.  The  team- 
sters were  cooking  a  breakfast  of  bacon  and  hard  tack 
when  we  got  back  to  our  wagons,  and  my  driver  hunted 
me  up  with  a  sandwich  of  hard  tack  and  bacon,  and  in- 
sisted on  my  taking  it,  and  a  cup  of  coffee,  too.  "  I'm 
going  to  look  after  you,"  he  said,  "  and  ye  gotter  eat." 
I  wanted  to  divide  with  B.,  but  the  ex-cavalryman 
wouldn't  hear  of  it.  "  Not  on  your  life,"  he  said,  "  let 
the  man  as  is  driving  him  look  after  him.  You  stick  to 
me,  and  you'll  get  fodder  to  burn,  and  if  it  ain't  good 
enough  for  you,  I'll  have  the  cook  cook  up  some  of  that 
grub  you  brought  along  with  you.  That's  too  good  for 
us  fellows.  Bacon  and  beans  is  our  rations,  but  the  cook 
can  cook  it,  and  if  he  can't  I  can.  You  ain't  a  going  to 
suffer  none." 

Well,  with  this  spirit  hovering  around,  you  can 
imagine  that  I  was  more  than  satisfied.  At  4 
o'clock  we  started  to  pull  out.  I  use  the  word  "  started  " 
advisedly,  for  it  was  after  8  o'clock  before  we  got  away 
from  that  bridge.  My  driver,  after  he  had  filled  me  up 
with  hard  tack  and  bacon,  went  to  take  a  look  at  the 
bridge,  and  when  he  came  back  he  said,  "  Say,  pard, 
don't  you  think  it  'ud  be  a  good  scheme  to  take  a  walk  for 
a  ways  to  digest  that  there  sandwich?  I'll  pick  ye  up 
t'other  side  of  the  bridge.  Walkin'  always  helps  digest 
bacon,  'n  half  the  drivers  in  this  'ere  train  don't  know 
no  more  'bout  drivin'  mules  than  nothin'.  They're  car- 
penters, that's  what  they  are.  It  'ud  serve  'em  right  if 
they  did  get  drowned,  half  of  'em,  leastwise.  I  wouldn't 
want  nothin'  to  happen  to  ye,  'n,  as  I  was  sayin',  pard, 
walkin'  does  help  digest  bacon." 

I  didn't  just  catch  what  he  was  drivin'  at  until  I  took 
his  advice  and  walked  across  that  bridge.  It  was  the 
flimsiest  and  narrowest  bridge  I  think  I  ever  went  across, 
and  when  I  got  over  I  stood  and  watched  for  the  pro- 
cession to  move.  My  driver  tackled  it  first.  He  un- 
hitched his  leading  mules  and  tied  them  behind  the 
wagon,  and  then  he  cracked  his  whip  and  yelled,  "  Gee 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  93 

up,  there,  Dynamite!"  (Dynamite,  I  had  learned,  was 
the  name  of  the  off  hind  mule,  because  he  was  noted 
as  a  mule  that  would  kick  the  daylights  out  of  anything 
that  came  his  way.)  That  journey  across  was  thrilling. 
The  boats  that  formed  the  bridge  bobbed  up  and  down 
as  the  heavy  mules  stepped,  and  the  still  heavier  wagons 
were  pulled  from  one  to  the  other.  The  mules  were 
nervous  and  frightened,  and  it  was  a  feat  of  driving  to 
get  them  across.  The  old  Sixth  Cavalryman  was  equal 
to  the  task,  and  he  wound  up  on  the  other  side,  put  on  his 
brakes,  and  jumped  off  his  wagon.  "  Now  you'll  see 
the  fun  when  them  skinners  try  it,"  he  said ;  and  we  did. 
The  second  man  reached  the  middle  of  the  bridge,  when 
suddenly  his  mules  got  the  best  of  him,  and  one  of  them 
tumbled  off  into  the  river.  That  started  the  fun.  The 
Japs  ran  out  to  the  rescue,  and  the  other  teamsters  all 
rushed  on.  And  there  was  as  much  excitement  as  you 
could  get  at  a  circus.  To  make  a  long  story  short  (see 
further  details  in  The  Sun)  that  mule  was  fished  out  and 
the  wagon  was  pulled  across  by  hand.  Two  wagons  fol- 
lowing also  tumbled  off  and  had  to  be  unloaded  before 
they  could  be  got  back.  The  driver  of  one  was  thrown 
into  the  river  and  nearly  drowned,  and  one  other  mule  fell 
into  the  river,  and  another  fell  into  one  of  the  boats  which 
formed  the  bridge.  All  were  rescued,  and  we  proceeded 
on  our  journey  with  the  sun  well  up  in  the  sky. 

We  reached  Yangts-sune  (?)  that  afternoon,  tired  out 
and  jolted  almost  to  pieces.  Then  I  went  to  an  American 
camp  and  introduced  myself  to  Colonel  Wint,  who 
commanded  the  place.  He  is  a  fine  man.  He  took  B. 
and  myself  in  and  insisted  on  our  eating  with  him,  and 
then  he  had  a  tent  set  aside  for  us  and  instructed  the 
sentry  what  time  we  were  to  be  called  in  the  morning. 
Four-thirty  was  the  hour.  We  sat  with  the  Colonel  and 
he  told  stories  all  the  evening.  The  sentry  evidently  mis- 
took his  order.  For  he  called  us  at  3.30  instead  of  4.30, 
and  we  went  out  to  find  our  teamsters  hustling  for  wood 
to  build  a  fire  to  cook  their  breakfast.  Wood  was  scarce, 
and  the  only  thing  they  could  do  was  to  dig  up  a  Chinese 
grave  and  take  the  coffin.  That  wasn't  as  bad  as  it 
gounds,  for  the  grave  was  so  old  that  the  Chinaman  whQ 


94  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

occupied  it  had  no  further  use  for  the  coffin,  and  besides, 
dogs  had  partly  dug  it  out  already.  Well,  our  coffee  was 
made  over  the  burning  coffin,  our  bacon  was  fried  over 
the  same,  and  away  we  went  for  another  day. 

Our  next  stop  was  to  have  been  Hoshc-wao,  but  we 
missed  it  entirely,  and  when  dusk  overtook  us,  we  were 
some  distance  from  Matto,  which  was  to  have  been  our 
fourth  stop.  We  got  off  the  road  somehow.  We  were 
four  miles  from  Matto,  and  to  try  to  reach  there  was 
hopeless.  You  see,  at  each  one  of  these  places  I  have 
mentioned  there  was  a  garrison  of  soldiers,  and  the  trip 
had  been  timed  so  that  we  would  reach  a  garrison  every 
night.  That  made  an  armed  guard  unnecessary.  Having 
missed  our  camp  and  being  unable  to  reach  the  next,  we 
were  without  a  guard.  To  make  matters  worse,  we  had 
heard  during  the  day  that  there  had  been  a  fight  at  a  town 
three  miles  from  Matto,  and  that  the  place  was  full  of 
Boxers,  and  here  we  were  at  that  very  town. 

The  fact  was  that  there  weren't  any  Boxers  anywhere 
around.  The  Chinamen  were  scared  out  of  their  wits, 
and  there  was  no  more  danger  of  hostilities  than  there  is 
in  Brooklyn  on  Adelphi  street.  We  are  not  dealing  now 
with  the  facts,  however,  but  with  what  our  scared  team- 
sters thought  were  the  facts.  We  had  with  us  for  guide  a 
pie-faced  Dutchman  who  wore  buckskin  pants.  The  Wa- 
gonmaster  said  he  knew  something  about  camping,  and  he 
wanted  a  place  that  could  be  guarded,  so  he  pitched  camp 
in  a  triangle  formed  by  three  roads  and  surrounded  on  all 
sides  by  cornfields !  All  an  attacking  party  had  to  do  was 
to  surround  us  in  the  cornfields  and  shoot.  But,  as  I  have 
already  explained,  there  wasn't  any  more  danger  of  that. 
The  moment  that  we  started  our  camp  some  half  a  dozen 
teamsters  disappeared.  Half  an  hour  passed,  when  we 
heard  a  heap  of  shooting  up  in  the  town.  It  was  followed 
by  a  few  minutes  of  silence,  and  then  our  guide  with  the 
buckskin  pants  came  down  the  street  as  if  he  had  been 
shot  out  of  a  cannon,  roaring  at  the  top  of  his  lungs  for 
"  Ammunition,  ammunition  !  "  He  grabbed  up  two  car- 
tridge belts  and  was  away  as  fast  as  his  buckskin-covered 
legs  could  carry  him,  while  we  waited  almost  breath- 
lessly for  what  was  to  follow.    It  came  in  perhaps  ten 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  95 

minutes.  It  was  a  procession  headed  by  the  tuckskin 
pants  that  enclosed  the  legs  of  a  man  whose  face  spoke 
volumes  of  triumph.  Behind  the  buckskin  pants  came  the 
missing  teamsters,  and  after  them  came  trailing  a  Krupp 
cannon  with  the  breech-block  gone.  Such  a  procession 
I  guess  China  never  before  saw,  and  the  captors  of  the 
cannon  crowded  about  the  camp-fire  that  was  now  blazing 
and  told  their  story.  They  had  gone  up  to  the  town  and 
had  noticed  that  the  people  acted  in  most  mysterious 
fashion,  rushing  into  their  houses  and  closing  and  lock- 
ing the  doors.  At  last  they  had  come  upon  a  group  of 
ten  men  who  were  immediately  identified  by  him  of  the 
buckskin  pants  as  Boxers,  and  they  had  opened  fire  on 
them  quick.  The  ten  escaped,  and  the  whole  town  had  ap- 
parently become  deserted.  To  their  excited  imagination 
one  thing  was  now  certain,  the  Boxers  were  holding  a 
council  of  war  behind  closed  doors  and  were  preparing  for 
a  night  attack.  The  brave  teamsters  had  seized  the  only 
gun  they  could  find  and  had  captured  it. 

As  I  said  before,  there  were  no  Boxers  around,  and 
the  people  of  the  town,  scared  out  of  their  wits  by  the 
sound  of  guns,  were  probably  all  of  thein  hiding  under 
their  beds.  But  it  was  dark,  and  the  corn  looked  iDooger- 
ish  enough,  and  the  story  went.  The  only  thing  to  be 
done  was  to  put  out  pickets  and  prepare  to  defend  that 
$200,000  train  to  the  last  ditch.  He  of  the  fur  pants  was 
appointed  sergeant  of  the  guard,  and  everybody  agreed  to 
take  his  turn  except  your  humble  servant.  I  was  sleepy 
and  hadn't  any  time  to  waste  on  the  nonsense.  I  told 
them  that  if  they  ran  short  of  guards  in  the  early  morning 
I  would  take  a  hand,  but  I  wanted  to  sleep  until  i  or  2 
o'clock  anyway.  I  spread  out  my  cot  under  a  tree  by  the 
roadside  and  went  to  sleep. 

Oh,  I  forgot  to  say  that  before  I  turned  in  there  was 
considerable  alarm  over  the  mysterious  disappearance  of 
our  missionary.  He  had  not  been  seen  since  the  shooting, 
and  it  was  rumored  that  the  Boxers  had  him  and  were 
boiling  him  for  supper.  A  relief  party  went  out,  but  he 
was  nowhere  to  be  found  and  we  mourned  his  loss.  That 
was  all  there  was  to  do.  Well,  I  slept  through  till  3 
o'clock,  when  I  was  awakened  by  a  mule  that  was  eating 


96  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

up  my  blankets.  Just  as  I  woke  I  heard  a  whistle, 
"  Whee-wha-whee-wha,"  then  silence.  Again  "  Whee- 
wha-whee-wha,"  and  then  a  voice,  unmistakably  that  of 
my  driver.  It  said,  "  Come  out  here,  you  damned  old 
fool.  What's  the  matter  ?  You  scared  ?  "  He  of  the 
fur  pants  was  in  the  middle  of  the  road,  and  was  whis- 
tling to  the  driver  who  was  on  guard  up  the  road.  He  of 
the  fur  pants  was  scared  and  didn't  care  to  go  and  relieve 
the  sentry.  It  was  bright  moonlight,  almost  as 
light  as  in  the  early  evening.  I  recovered  my  blanket 
from  the  mule  and  dropped  off  to  sleep  again. 

When  I  woke  up  the  camp-fire  was  bright  and  the 
bacon  was  sizzling.  Of  the  story  of  that  night  I  know  no 
more.  We  reached  Tung  Chow  the  next  day,  and  camped 
there  under  guard  that  night,  and  this  morning  we  came 
on  to  Peking.  Of  what  I  have  seen  here  I  will  tell  you  in 
future  letters,  and  will  close  this  altogether  too  long,  and 
I  fear  uninteresting,  epistle  with  the  usual  assurance  that 
you  have  as  always  all  my  love. 

Peking,  Sunday,  October  14,  1900,  being  the  21st  day 
of  the  eighth  month  (intercalary)  of  the  26th  year 
of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

If  you  will  permit  me  now  to  continue  my  discourse  of 
yesterday  I  will  try  to  be  brief  and  not  weary  you  with  a 
lot  of  detail.  As  you  know,  it  was  yesterday  that  I 
reached  Peking,  shortly  after  noon.  "  Me  friend  "  B. 
thought  he  would  like  to  get  a  picture  of  the  wagon 
train  to  show,  and  when  we  stopped,  just  before  entering 
the  city,  he  got  off  and  fixed  up  his  machine.  Then  he 
said  "  Hi  soy,  Chamberlaine,  would  you  moind  holding 
this  'ere  box  on  your  lap  on  your  wagon  ?  "  I  looked  at 
the  box.  It  said  "  J.  B.,  Bioscope  Company  War 
Correspondent."  There  was  nothing  for  me  to  do  under 
the  circumstances  but  to  invite  him  to  Hades,  which  I 
did.  He  got  his  picture  all  right  without  the  ass,  and  we 
entered  Peking.  We  went  direct  to  the  American  camp, 
which  is  in  the  Temple  of  Agriculture,  the  temple  being 
a  great  walled  enclosure  covering  many  acres  and  full  of 
buildings  and  gods  and  such  like. 

Oh,  by  the  way,  while  I  think  of  it.     I  forgot  to  tell 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  97 

you  about  our  missionfary.  When  I  left  him  in  yester- 
day's letter  he  was  missing  and  we  mourned  his  loss.  Well, 
just  as  we  were  starting  in  the  morning  he  turned  up.  He 
had  slept  in  a  temple  full  of  busted  gods,  just  a  stone's 
throw  from  the  camp.  He  told  us  that  there  was  one  place 
into  which  a  Chinaman  would  not  go,  and  that  was  a  tem- 
ple, so  he  went  there  for  safety.  There  had  been  forty 
gods  in  the  temple,  but  somebody  had  come  along  with  a 
brick  and  smashed  their  heads  and  pulled  them  off  their 
seats  and  smashed  them  on  the  floor.  The  missionary  had 
slept  among  them,  and  if  the  Boxers  had  come  he  probably 
would  have  been  taken  for  a  busted  god,  too. 

But  to  get  back  to  Peking.  It  was  a  sight.  Everything 
was  smashed  up  and  burned  and  destroyed,  the  same  as 
in  Tien  Tsin — the  same  as  every  town  from  Tien  Tsin 
to  Peking.  It  was  all  a  picture  of  ruin.  Where  to  stay 
was  a  question.  B.  seemed  to  think  it  was  a  part 
of  my  business  to  find  a  place  for  him,  but  I  quickly  dis- 
abused his  mind  of  that  idea  and  went  hustling  for  my- 
self. As  I  told  you  in  yesterday's  letter.  Major  Ives  took 
me  in,  and  I'm  with  him  yet,  though  I  expect  to  be  better 
fixed  in  a  day  or  two.  I  saw  General  Wilson  to-day,  and  he 
invited  me  to  come  into  his  mess,  that  is,  join  his  ofificial 
family,  and  he  said  he  would  find  a  room  in  one  of  the 
buildings  in  the  temple  for  me,  so  I  guess  that  fixes  me 
all  right.  I  have  not  had  a  chance  to  go  around  yet,  and 
so  I  don't  know  just  what  the  situation  is.  I'll  find  out 
to-morrow  and  will  try  to  let  you  know  more  about  it. 

Peking,  Monday,  October  15,  1900.  This  being  the 
twentieth  day  of  the  eighth  moon  (intercalary)  of 
the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

I  am  not  fixed  yet  except  in  the  matter  of  eating.  I 
have  struck  the  best  mess  in  Peking,  that  which  is 
presided  over  by  General  Wilson,  of  whom  you  have  heard 
me  speak.  General  Wilson  lives  on  the  fat  of  the  land,  if 
there  is  any  fat  about,  and  I  am  eating  with  him  at  a  cost 
of  $1.50  a  day,  which  is  not  half  bad.  He  is  hustling  for 
a  room  for  me  and  I  shall  probably  have  one  to-morrow 
in  his  compound,  and  then  I'll  be  fixed  and  have  a  place 
to  write,  which  is  at  present  the  most  important  con- 


98  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

sideration,  for  as  it  is  I  am  scarcely  able  to  do  any  work 
for  The  Sun  at  all  except  the  short  cables  that  I  am  send- 
ing every  day  or  so. 

Yesterday  afternoon  I  took  dinner  at  the  Rev.  A.'s 
house.  The  Rev.  A.  is  a  missionary,  and  he  appears 
to  be  a  very  good  sort  of  a  fellow,  but  I  cannot  for  the 
life  of  me  approve  of  his  methods.  I  think  I  shall  have 
to  write  a  story  about  him  and  some  of  the  other  mis- 
sionaries. You  see,  when  the  soldiers  came  to  Peking  and 
these  missionaries  were  safe,  some  of  them  began  at  once 
to  clamor  for  damages  that  they  said  they  had  sustained. 
The  first  thing  they  did  was  to  get  for  living  places  the 
palaces  of  the  rich  Chinese  Princes,  and  when  they  had 
them  they  started  in  clearing  them  out.  They  took 
everything  of  value  and  sold  it  for  a  song.  Then  they 
let  their  native  Christians  go  out  hunting  and  stealing 
more  loot,  and  they  sold  that.  They  said  it  was  no  sin 
and  they  eased  their  consciences  by  saying  that  they  had 
the  right  to  reimburse  themselves  for  the  losses  that  they 
had  sustained.  It  was  just  as  if  a  man  had  stolen  some- 
thing from  me,  and,  to  get  square,  I  went  and  stole  some- 
thing from  him.  In  other  words,  two  wrongs  make  a 
right.  That  may  be  all  right,  but  I  don't  think  so.  At 
A.'s  home,  which  was  the  palace  of  Prince  Pei,  a 
Manchu,  before  the  trouble,  I  met  a  lot  more  missionaries. 

Peking,  Tuesday,  October  i6,  being  the  twenty-third 
day  of  the  eighth  moon  (intercalary)  of  the  26th 
year  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

I  have  a  living  place  at  last  and  am  as  comfortably 
fixed  as  a  man  could  expect  to  be  in  a  beleagured  town 
such  as  this  is.  One  of  General  Wilson's  staff  went  away 
to-day  and  I  moved  into  his  room,  which  is  one  of  those 
in  a  building  facing  General  Wilson's  house.  I  put  up  my 
cot  there  to-day,  moved  my  stuff  over,  and  now  I  have 
not  only  a  place  to  lay  my  head,  but  also  a  place  where  I 
can  do  some  work.  General  Wilson  has  been  as  nice  as  a 
man  could  be.  He  has  put  himself  out  in  a  dozen  ways 
to  make  sure  that  I  should  be  comfortable,  and  I  am. 
That  is  to  say,  I  am  as  comfortable  as  a  man  can  be  away 
from  home  and  family.     I  have  been  so  busy  that  I 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  99 

haven't  been  able  to  make  acquaintances  and  get  in  close 
touch  with  the  situation  yet,  so  I  am  still  unable  to  tell 
you  what  the  prospects  are  for  an  early  return.  I'll  get 
about  that  shortly;  meantime,  possess  your  soul  in 
patience,  as  I  am  possessing  mine. 

The  air  of  this  town  fairly  reeks  with  loot.  Loot  is 
the  word  most  often  heard.  From  all  I  can  gather 
everybody  stole  everything  that  was  in  sight,  when  the 
troops  came  here.  It  made  no  difference  who  the  man 
was — he  was  robbed  if  he  was  Chinese.  He  might  have 
devoted  weeks  and  months  to  the  service  of  the  Chris- 
tians. It  was  a  crime  for  him  to  be  Chinese,  and  he  was 
despoiled  of  any  property  he  might  be  possessed  of. 
There  is  Christianity,  setting  an  example  for  the  heathens, 
or  shall  we  say  that  Christianity  is  off  its  base  and  is  fol- 
lowing the  example  set  by  heathens?  I  guess  it  doesn't 
matter  much  which  way  we  put  it — it  amounts  to  the 
same  thing. 

In  the  game  of  loot  the  British  seem  to  take  the  cake, 
and  the  biscuit  too.  They  don't  deny  that  they  have 
stolen,  and  one  of  the  sights  of  the  town  is  an  auction 
they  hold  any  afternoon,  where  some  of  the  products  of 
their  stealing  are  sold  to  the  highest  bidders.  The 
auction  is  held  in  the  British  Legation.  It  is  open  to  any- 
one, and  crowds  go  daily.  Great  crowds  are  getting 
stuck,  too,  for  higher  prices  are  being  obtained  for  things 
than  the  same  things  could  be  purchased  for  in  peace 
times.  The  British  have  a  great  stock  of  loot  which  they 
expect  to  sell  and  the  profit  of  it  will  be  divided  among 
the  officers.  You  see,  they  consider  the  thing  legitimate ! 
I  would  write  a  piece  about  that,  too,  but  I  am  afraid 
that  somebody  else  has  already  covered  the  story  fully. 

Peking,  Wednesday,  October  17,  1900,  eighth  moon, 

(intercalary),  twentv-fourth  day,  26th  year,  Kuang 

Hsu. 

Once  more  I  take  my  pen  in  hand — only  it  happens  to 

be  a  pencil — and  I  take  my  manila  pad  and  sit  me  down 

to  tell  my  mentor  of  the  doings  of  a  day.     I  can  tell  you, 

now,  they  have  been  mighty  slim — nothing  at  all  worth 

talking  about.     I've  been  trying  to  get  under  the  skin  of 


100  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

our  amiable  American  Minister,  Mr.  Conger.  He 
doesn't  seem  to  soften  up  a  bit  and  I  have  to  make  him 
do  it  if  I  want  to  get  in  on  the  peace  negotiations.  I 
took  my  credentials  to  him  to-day  and  told  him  frankly 
that  I  wanted  his  confidence.  We  had  a  long  talk  and  I 
think  I'll  get  him  all  right,  but  it  is  a  work  of  time.  But 
of  course  this  doesn't  interest  you,  so  I  won't  say  anything 
more  about  it. 

After  I  had  seen  Conger,  I  made  a  trip  out  to  the 
Summer  Palace,  which  is  the  show-place  of  China.  The 
Summer  Palace  is  where  the  Emperor  and  the  Dowager 
go  to  spend  the  Summer  ordinarily.  They  didn't  do  it 
this  year,  of  course.  They  had  business  elsewhere, 
when  the  guns  began  to  boom.  Without  any  question 
the  Summer  Palace  is  a  beautiful  place.  It  is  a  high 
garden,  with  buildings  here  and  there — some  of  them 
temples  and  some  of  them  dwellings — and,  all  about, 
the  grounds  overgrown  with  flowers.  There  is  a  big 
lake,  and  at  one  end  of  it  a  huge  marble  boat  that  was 
built  many  years  ago,  for  what  purpose  the  mind  of  man 
cannot  conceive,  for  it  certainly  was  a  useless  outlay  of 
a  great  deal  of  money.  The  grounds  of  the  Summer 
Palace  include  a  high  hill,  and  on  top  of  this  hill  are  two 
temples  with  hideous  Chinese  gods,  which  are  wor- 
shiped by  the  heathen  here.  There  were  tables  in  front 
of  the  gods  and  these  were  loaded  down  with  cakes  and 
fancy  things,  so  the  gods  might  not  go  hungry.  The 
Chinamen  were  astounded  at  the  daring  of  the  foreigners 
who  went  into  the  temples  and  felt  of  the  big  brass  things 
and  speculated  on  their  antiquity  and  on  what  use  they 
might  be.  The  Summer  Palace  has  been  thoroughly 
looted  and  there  wasn't  a  thing  there  in  the  shape  of  a 
souvenir  to  take  away.  When  the  soldiers  first  got  there 
it  was  full  of  the  richest  porcelains  and  jade  and  things 
of  that  sort.  Every  bit  of  it  was  gone.  There  were 
beautiful  bronzes,  too.  Down  near  the  gate  there  was  a 
British  post  and  a  big  building.  A  lot  of  the  stolen  stuflf 
was  in  that  building,  in  charge  of  the  soldiers,  who  said 
it  was  all  to  be  returned,  but  that  is  all  in  my  eye.  The 
British  never  return  anything  that  they  get  their  hands 
on.     They   will    wait   now   until   they   get   a    favorable 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  lOl 

chance  to  get  the  stuff  away,  then  away  it  will  go  and 
will  never  be  seen  in  Peking  again. 

Peking,  Thursday,  October  i8,  1900.  Eighth  moon 
(intercalary),  26th  year,  Kuang  Hsu,  now  under 
a  cloud. 

Lest  you  should  have  some  doubts  about  the  state  of 
my  health  I  enclose  herewith  a  photograph.  You  might 
call  it  Beauty  and  the  Beast.  Of  course  there  is  a  story 
connected  with  it.  Count  von  Waldersee,  the  Gennan 
Commander-in-chief,  arrived  here  to-day  and  there  was 
a  big  procession  in  his  honor.  All  the  armies  were  out 
and  all  the  Generals  greeted  him.  The  streets  were  lined 
with  soldiers  in  fancy  uniform.  The  byways  were  lined 
with  correspondents  armed  with  cameras.  The  Count 
is  going  to  live  in  the  palace  of  the  Dowager  Empress, 
and  the  line  of  march  to  that  palace  led  through  the  gate- 
ways of  the  Tartar  City  and  the  Imperial  City,  and 
almost  to  the  gate  of  the  Forbidden  City.  Just  outside 
the  gate  of  the  Forbidden  City  are  two  marble  beasts. 
You  can  judge  of  the  size  of  them  from  the  picture. 
They  are  supposed  to  be  heavenly  dogs,  and  when  the 
evil  spirits  come  to  vex  the  Emperor  and  the  Dowager 
they  are  supposed  to  be  frightened  by  the  dogs,  or,  if 
th£y  are  not,  the  dogs  descend  from  their  pedestals  and 
eat  them  up.     That's  what  the  Chinese  think,  anyway. 

Well,  after  the  procession  had  gone  by,  J.,  one 
of  the  correspondents,  discovered  that  he  had  one  film 
he  had  not  used,  and  M.,  E.  and  myself  proposed  that  he 
take  our  pictures.  We  climbed  up  on  the  dog,  while  a  lot 
of  superstitious  Chinamen  gaped  at  us  in  awe  at  our 
daring.  I'm  on  the  left.  E.  is  in  the  middle  and  J.  is 
sitting  on  the  pedestal.  We  got  a  Signal  Corps  man  to 
push  the  button.  Now,  look  upon  it,  and  see  for  yourself 
my  state  of  health.  Do  you  want  anything  better  than 
that?  Possibly  you  won't  recognize  the  hat  or  the  leg- 
gings, for  I  don't  wear  them  in  civilized  countries.  The 
hat  is  an  army  campaign  hat  and  the  leggings  are  army 
leggings.     One  has  to  wear  them  here. 

After  the  show  was  over  I  went  up  to  the  house  of  the 
missionary,  A.,  to  lunch.     E.  and  J.  are  living  with  him. 


102  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

Before  I  had  finished  I  had  bought  a  job  lot  of  China 
gods  from  A.  for  $5,  Mexican.  They  are  of  brass  and 
will  make  good  mantel  ornaments.  They  will  also  make 
good  things  to  give  away  to  our  friends  as  souvenirs  of 
China.  They  are  so  cheap  I  think  I'll  invest  in  some 
more.  I  also  arranged  to  get  a  couple  of  Chinese  gowns 
of  silk,  which  I  think  maybe  you  will  like.  Maybe  I'll 
send  them  home,  and  maybe  I'll  bring  them  when  I  come, 
whenever  that  will  be. 

Peking,  Friday,  October  19,  Kuang  Hsu,  26th  year, 
eighth  month  (intercalary),  26th  day. 

"  The  winds  do  blow  and  we  shall  have  snow,  and 
what  will  poor  Robin  do  then,  poor  thing?"  The  fact 
is  that  we  have  snow.  This  is  the  first  of  the  season 
and  Peking  looks  as  wintry  as  Jersey  City  used  to  in  the 
blizzard  days.  I  went  to  bed  last  night,  and  it  was  as 
nice  a  night  as  you  would  want  to  see.  It  was  even  a 
little  warmer  than  it  had  been.  Well,  I  woke  up  about 
3  or  4  o'clock  and  everything  was  rattling  and  the  wind 
was  coming  into  every  crack  of  the  branch  of  the  Temple 
of  Agriculture  that  I  occupied.  Cold  ?  Gee  whiz !  I 
had  two  blankets  over  me,  and  I  shivered.  I  didn't  lose 
any  time  getting  another  one,  I  can  tell  you. 

I  laid  in  bed  until  seven,  and  then  got  up  to  find  it  snow- 
ing and  blowing  like  merry  Hades.  It  was  anything  but 
cheerful.  But  there  was  work  to  do  and  I  had  to  get 
out  and  stir  around.  After  I  had  eaten  breakfast  I  wrote 
a  cable  on  the  situation  for  The  Sun,  and  then  I  started 
uptown  to  the  cable  office  with  the  wind  blowing  a  gale 
and  a  combined  dust  and  snow  storm  that  was  awful  to 
relate.  It  was  a  mile-and-a-half  walk  and  it  seemed  to  me 
to  be  twenty  miles  before  I  got  there.  That  wasn't  the 
worst  of  it.  The  telegraph  line  was  down  and  the  whole 
wire  was  useless.  No  message  could  be  sent.  Maybe 
I  was  not  angry !  I  wished  heartily  that  I  was  back  in  the 
United  States.  That  isn't  an  unusual  wish  these  days, 
I  can  assure  you,  but  I  don't  think  that  I  have  ever 
wished  it  harder  than  to-day.  There  wasn't  anything 
to  do  but  to  go  back  to  the  Temple  of  Agriculture,  and  I 
did  that  with  as  good  grace  as  I  could.     Then,  I  went  to 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  103 

see  General  Chaffee  and  he  helped  me  out  a  bit  by  giving 
me  permission  to  send  my  telegram  to  the  cable  office  at 
Taku  over  the  military  line.  That  was  a  very  decent 
thing  of  him,  and  he  has  done  it  to  nobody  else  that  I  have 
heard.  General  Wilson,  whom  I  have  known  a  long  time, 
fixed  that  for  me.  You  see,  I  am  among  friends  out 
here,  and  good  friends,  too.  I  saw  Mr.  Conger  this 
afternoon  and  had  a  talk  with  him,  but  it  wasn't  a  very 
satisfactory  one.  He  doesn't  seem  to  know  anything, 
or,  if  he  does,  he  doesn't  seem  to  want  to  tell  it.  I  think 
I'll  have  to  get  after  him  with  a  sharp  stick. 

Peking,  Saturday,  October  20,  1900.     The  same  being 
the  twenty-ninth  day  of  the  eighth  moon   (inter- 
calary), and  the  26th  year  of  Kuang  Hsu  the  Son 
of  Heaven,  now  under  a  cloud. 
I  have  been  through  the  Forbidden  City,  I  have  sat 
upon  every  throne  that  the  Emperor  possesses  and  every 
throne  ever  occupied  by  the  Dowager.     I  have  seated 
myself  and  lain  down  upon  the  bed  of  the  Emperor,  and 
in  fact  I've  had  a  regular  picnic  with  things  royal.     As 
you  of  course  know,  the  Forbidden  City  has  been  care- 
fully guarded  by  the  allies  since  they  came  here,  and 
nobody  has  been  admitted   into  the  place  except   with 
passes  issued  by  the  Generals,  and  then  only  in  parties 
accompanied   by   an   armed   guard.     I   heard    yesterday 
that    Bishop    M.    of   the    M.    E.    Church    had    obtained 
permission  to  go  through  the  city  with  a  party,  and  so  I 
got  up  early  and  rode  to  the  gate  and  waited  their  com- 
ing.    Then  I  attached  myself  to  the  party  and  went  in 
without  anybody  saying  me  nay. 

Well,  there  is  not  much  to  tell  about  it.  It  is  the 
greatest  disappointment,  I  think,  that  I  have  ever  ex- 
perienced. The  place  is  about  a  mile  square  and  is  filled 
with  houses  and  with  eunuchs.  The  houses  are,  most 
of  them,  temples,  and  are  called  Halls  of  Harmony. 
There  is  a  throne  in  every  hall,  and  the  Bishop  and  I  sat 
on  every  throne.  The  first  sight  of  the  city  makes  you 
think  of  the  whole  Chinese  Empire.  It  is  a  picture  of 
degeneracy.  Everything  in  it  is  running  to  seed  or  de- 
caying, just  like  the  Chinese  Empire.     The  first  Hall  of 


104  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

Harmony  we  went  in  was  carpeted  with  American  rugs 
and  was  full  of  pigeons  and  bats,  and  they  had  dirtied 
the  place  all  up — even  the  throne  itself.  It  was  a  vile- 
smelling  and  filthy  place.  The  second  hall  was  a  little 
better,  but  it  was  used  as  a  roosting-place  by  the  birds, 
too.  After  these  halls  were  passed  things  looked  a  little 
better,  because  they  were  cleaner,  but  they  were  not  so 
much  better. 

In  one  house  was  the  Emperor's  living  apartment.  It 
was  a  beautiful  place,  furnished  in  blue.  The  whole 
room  was  carved  black  wood,  and  the  Emperor's  bed  was 
built  into  the  room.  It  was  draped  in  blue.  There  was 
a  great  table  in  the  room  and  that  was  absolutely  filled 
with  clocks  of  all  kinds.  It  was  a  sight  that  you  might 
expect  to  see  in  a  clock-store — nothing  more.  The  Em- 
peror was  a  crank  in  clocks.  They  were  everywhere  in 
profusion  in  the  city.  You  couldn't  turn  in  any  direction 
without  running  into  a  clock,  and  more  often  you  ran  into 
a  bunch  of  a  dozen  or  more.  What  there  is  about  the 
clocks  to  attract  him  I  don't  know.  Some  of  the  clocks 
were  magnificent,  jeweled  affairs.  Others  were  plain, 
common,  ordinary  clocks.  There  were  clocks  of  wood, 
of  brass,  of  gold,  of  silver,  of  porcelain — of  any  old  thing. 
They  had  all  stopped,  by  the  way.  None  of  them  have 
been  running,  the  eunuchs  said,  since  the  royal  family 
ran  away  to  escape  the  troops. 

The  apartments  of  the  Dowager  Empress  were  dec- 
orated as  highly,  if  not  more  so,  and  by  clocks,  too. 
There  were  beautiful  pieces  of  wood-carving  every- 
where, and  much  jade  that  was  priceless,  but  on  the 
whole,  as  I  said  before,  the  city  was  a  rank  failure  as  a 
spectacular  show.  The  eunuchs  followed  us  every- 
where, and  at  almost  every  turn  they  handed  cups  of  tea 
to  us  and  invited  us  to  drink.  We  did  for  a  while,  until 
it  got  tiresome.  I  won't  burden  you  with  any  further 
description  here,  for  I'll  write  a  story  for  The  Sun  about 
the  Bishop's  visit,  and  you  can  read  the  details  there. 
Coming  out  of  the  place  I  picked  up  some  bullets  and 
some  broken  pieces  of  shell  which  I  shall  keep  as  sou- 
venirs. 

You  might  suppose  that  a  trip  through  the  Forbidden 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  105 

City  would  be  as  much  sight-seeing  as  a  man  would  care 
to  do  in  a  day's  time,  but  when  I  got  to  the  Legation  I 
found  the  Minister  and  a  party  starting  on  a  trip  to  the 
Bell  Temple, and  he  invited  me  to  join  them  ;  so  I  did.  The 
Bell  Temple  is  a  Buddhist  temple,  outside  the  city  walls, 
and,  like  all  such  places,  it  is  full  of  brass  gods.  The 
particular  attraction  there  is  a  huge  bell.  It  is  the  big- 
gest bell  I  ever  saw.  The  Chinese  believe  that  when  the 
bell  is  struck  it  is  a  notice  to  all  the  gods  to  wake  up  and 
hear  their  prayers.  Two  of  us  picked  up  a  log  of  wood 
and  woke  up  the  gods  for  fair.  The  bell  stands  two  or 
three  feet  high,  and  though  it  is  hung  to  swing  back  and 
forth  it  is  so  heavy  that  it  took  all  of  my  strength  just 
to  move  it.  We  were  accompanied  through  the  temple 
by  a  Buddhist  priest.  In  ordinary  times,  if  we  had  hit 
the  bell  we  would  have  been  fired  out  on  our  heads.  But 
in  these  days  the  Chinese  are  not  firing  anybody  any- 
where. 

On  the  way  back  to  the  city  we  stopped  at  the  Yellow 
Temple,  where  we  saw  the  worst  cases  of  vandalism  that 
I  have  seen  yet.  The  Yellow  Temple  is  a  Buddhist 
temple,  too,  and  the  chief  attraction  is  a  high  marble 
monument,  carved  from  top  to  bottom.  The  carving  is 
a  history  of  the  life  of  Buddha  from  his  birth  to  his  death. 
You  understand,  the  scenes  of  his  life  are  cut  in  the 
marble.  Some  vandals  had  taken  hammers  and  knocked 
off  fifty  or  sixty  of  the  faces,  ruining  the  whole  thing. 
It  was  useless  destruction,  and  I  couldn't  but  let  my 
temper  get  up  over  it. 

Peking,  Sunday,  October  21,  twenty-eighth  day,  eighth 
moon  (intercalary),  26th  year,  Kuang  Hsu. 

This  has  been  a  great  day  for  the  troops.  The  Four- 
teenth Infantry  started  away  for  Manila,  where  they  are 
going  to  do  some  more  fighting,  and  everybody  went  out 
to  see  them  off  and  to  wish  them  God-speed.  I  mounted 
my  white  nag  at  nine  in  the  morning  and  started  off  with 
General  Chaffee  and  General  Wilson  and  their  staffs  to 
take  part  in  the  show,  the  Generals  of  course  inviting  me. 
The  Ninth  Infantry,  the  Third  Artillery,  and  the  Sixth 
Cavalry,  who  are  all  doomed  to  spend  the  Winter  in 


106  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

Peking,  formed  the  escort  for  the  Fourteenth,  who  were 
as  enthusiastic  as  young  kittens  at  the  prospect  of  going. 

The  Generals  headed  the  procession,  and  away  we 
marched  down  the  street  leading  to  the  Forbidden  City, 
to  Legation  Street,  where  all  the  Legations  are.  We 
marched  up  Legation  Street.  A  big  crowd  was  gathered 
in  front  of  the  American  Legation  compound.  All  the 
ladies  of  the  various  Legations  were  gathered  there  to  see 
the  boys  off  and  to  wish  them  good  luck.  The  band 
whooped  things  up  and  there  was  a  great  time  right  at 
hand.  We  picked  up  the  American  Minister  there  and 
boosted  him  up  on  one  of  General  Wilson's  horses,  and 
were  away  again  for  the  ceremony,  which  was  to  take 
place  two  miles  outside  of  the  city.  We  had  not  gone  far 
when  two  members  of  Count  von  Waldersee's  staff 
joined  us.  The  Count  had  sent  them  along  to  represent 
him  in  the  farewell.  We  marched  on  up  Legation  Street 
to  the  Hattaman, — I  guess  that  spelling  is  a  little  off; 
anyway,  it  is  a  gate  of  the  Tartar  city, — and  we  went  out 
that  and  along  the  southern  wall  of  the  city  to  the  south- 
east gate,  and  then  on  out  into  the  country. 

Two  miles  out  we  halted.  The  Generals  and  their 
staffs  and  your  humble  servant  drew  up  on  one  side  of 
the  road,  and  the  cavalry  drew  up  on  the  other.  The 
artillery  drew  up  behind  the  Generals  and  then  the  Four- 
teenth marched  along,  right-about-faced,  and  halted. 
Then  the  big  guns  began  booming  out  a  national  salute 
of  twenty-one  guns.  After  that  was  over  General  Chaffee 
called  up  Colonel  Daggett  and  made  a  little  speech  to  him, 
in  the  course  of  which  he  thanked  the  Fourteenth  for  the 
splendid  work  they  had  done  and  wished  them  good  luck 
in  the  future.  Colonel  Daggett  made  a  little  speech  in  re- 
ply, thanking  the  General  for  the  turn-out,  and  then  the 
band  struck  up  "  The  Star-Spangled  Banner."  Instantly 
every  head  was  uncovered  and  we  all  stood  bared  until 
the  hymn  was  finished.  Colonel  Daggett  then  called  for 
three  cheers  for  General  Chaffee.  They  were  given. 
Then  three  more  for  General  Wilson,  and  they  were 
whooped  out.  Then  three  for  Minister  Conger,  "  whom 
we  came  to  save."  Then  three  for  the  battery,  and  then 
three   for  the  cavalry.     Everybody   shook  hands   with 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  107 

everybody  else  and  bade  each  other  good-bye.  They  were 
all  men,  but  I  can  tell  you  there  were  some  tears  in  the 
crowd  as  the  band  struck  up  a  lively  march  and  the  old 
Fourteenth  swung  around  and  started  off  on  the  eighty- 
mile  march  to  Taku,  where  they  are  to  get  a  transport.  It 
was  a  mighty  inspiring  sight.  They  were  going  to  war ; 
undoubtedly  some  of  them  were  making  their  last  march 
in  life ;  but  they  went  at  it  with  a  vim  and  a  spirit  that 
could  not  but  make  you  feel  proud  of  being  an  American. 

After  the  show  I  went  to  the  palace  of  Prince  Pei, 
where  I  had  beans  and  brown  bread  with  the  family  of 
the  Rev.  A.,  the  man  who  sold  me  the  gods. 

This  was  the  day's  record. 

Peking,  October  22,  being  the  twenty-ninth  day  of  the 
eighth  moon,  26th  year,  Kuang  Hsu. 

Here  it  is,  almost  the  first  of  November,  and  these 
blooming  Peace  Commissioners  haven't  met !  The 
trouble  is  that  the  French  Minister  has  typhoid  fever 
and  the  German  Minister  is  not  here  yet.  All  the  re- 
ports that  I  get  indicate  that  it  won't  be  half  as  difficult 
a  matter  to  settle  the  trouble  as  it  looked  to  be  at  first,  and, 
once  they  get  together,  I  look  for  a  good  quick  wind-up. 
It  seems  to  me  now  that  the  scene  of  operation  may  be 
transferred  to  Europe,  in  which  case  I  suppose  I  will  be 
able  to  accompany  the  crowd.  Once  I  get  started  from 
here  that  will  be  coming  home,  whether  it  is  by  way  of 
Europe  or  not. 

I  started  out  on  my  pony  at  9  o'clock  this  morning  with 
General  Wilson,  who  is  a  splendid  fellow,  and  rode  up 
to  the  American  Legation,  where  I  saw  Mr.  Conger,  the 
Minister,  and  had  a  talk  with  him.  There  was  nothing 
new.  Then  I  went  over  to  the  British  Legation.  I  have 
already  told  you  something  about  the  way  the  British  sold 
their  loot  at  auction.  I  found  that  the  auctions  had 
ceased,  but  that  they  were  still  selling  at  private  sale. 
Well,  I  wish  I  had  the  pen  power  to  describe  to  you  the 
condition  of  things  and  the  motley  crowd  of  Indian 
soldiers  I  saw  there.  Everything  in  the  building  was  in 
the  most  awful  confusion.  There  were  tons  and  tons  of 
stuff,  and  it  had  all  been  pawed  over  and  pawed  over  to 


108  ORDEREDTOCHINA 

get  the  good  pieces  out.  The  floor  was  strewed  witK 
silks  and  furs,  and  you  walked  around  knee-deep  in  the 
stuff.  There  was  mighty  little  choice  stuff  left,  and  all  I 
could  find  that  attracted  me  was  a  short  coat  and  a  long 
coat.  I  bought  the  short  coat  for  50  cents  because  there 
was  some  very  handsome  gold  embroidery  on  it.  I 
bought  the  long  one  for  a  dollar  because  it  was  typically 
Chinese,  and  the  word  "  happiness "  was  embroidered 
all  over  it.  I  think  I'll  buy  another  one  of  them  to- 
morrow and  send  it  to  you  for  G.  It  is  pure  Chinese  and 
ought  to  interest  her,  though  I  can't  for  the  life  of  me  see 
to  what  use  it  can  be  put.  I  rode  back  to  the  Temple  of 
Agriculture  in  time  for  lunch  and  here  I  am.  I  have  just 
finished  that  and  am  writing  my  daily  letter. 

Peking,  October  24,  ninth  moon,  second  day,  26th  year 
of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

Another  moon  has  passed  and  Peking  still  holds  me 
tight  in  her  grip.  The  mail  went  away  yesterday  with 
the  last  batch  of  letters  that  I  wrote  you  and  now  I  am 
anxiously  waiting  its  return,  hoping  to  get  a  fresh  batch 
up  from  Tien  Tsin  from  you.  I  may  be  disappointed, 
but  I'm  getting  used  to  disappointments.  I'm  dog-gone 
disappointed  that  I  haven't  been  able  to  start  home 
before  this,  but  the  fates  seem  to  be  against  me  on  that 
proposition. 

I  made  another  trip  to  the  Hateman  to-day, — up  in  the 
Japanese  quarter,  where,  as  I  have  told  you,  the  street  is 
full  of  the  peddlers  of  loot, — and  I  possessed  myself  of  a 
few  things  that  I  think  maybe  you  and  the  rest  of  the 
folks  will  like  to  look  at,  at  least.  I  won't  tell  you  what 
they  are  until  I  send  them  to  you,  which  will  I  think  be 
in  about  a  week.  In  order  to  get  them  into  the  United 
States  safely  I  am  going  to  send  them  direct  to  Washing- 
ton in  the  Government  dispatch-bag,  with  the  request  that 
they  be  forwarded  to  you  from  there,  C.  O.  D.  The 
express  charges  should  not  be  more  than  50  cents,  though 
they  might  be  $1.00.  At  all  events,  I  don't  think  you  will 
lose  anything  if  you  pay  the  dollar  charges.  I  don't 
know  exactly  when  the  next  dispatch-bag  goes,  so  I  can't 
tell  you  when  to  expect  them.     I   don't   know  what's 


ORDEREDTO    CHINA  109 

going  on  in  New  York  and  I  haven't  heard  a  word  from 
the  office  since  I  left,  except  in  the  shape  of  orders,  so  I 
guess  they  are  all  happy  and  satisfied,  even  if  I  am  not. 

I  went  to  see  Minister  Conger  again  to-day,  and  had 
quite  a  long  talk  with  him  about  the  situation,  after  which 
I  wrote  and  sent  a  cable  that  may  or  may  not  have  gotten 
away.  I  don't  know.  That  is  one  of  the  pleasing 
characteristics  of  the  cable  business  here;  you  can  never 
tell  what  happens  to  your  stuff  after  you  once  file  it  with 
the  office. 

I  met  the  Minister's  family  to-day.  He  has  a  wife 
and  daughter.  They  seem  to  be  very  nice  people  and 
they  invited  me  to  come  out  and  see  them  whenever 
possible.  Of  course  I  won't  go.  They  have  official  en- 
tertaining enough  to  keep  them  busy  without  my 
bothering  them.  Besides  that,  I  haven't  time.  While 
there  appears  to  be  mighty  little  to  do  in  Peking,  it  cer- 
tainly does  take  a  heap  sight  of  time  to  do  it,  and  I  find 
it  hard  even  to  get  time  enough  to  myself  to  write 
you  the  daily  letters.  One  trouble  besides  the  want  of 
time  is  the  miserable  writing  accommodations  I  have  to 
put  up  with.  There  is  absolutely  no  place  in  Peking 
where  there  is  room,  and  where  at  the  same  time  there  is 
a  chance  to  say  your  soul  is  your  own  in  private.  How- 
ever, I  guess  you  have  something  better  to  do  than  to 
listen  to  complaints,  and  as  I'm  grumpy  enough  with 
them,  I'll  close  this  letter. 

Peking,  Thursday,  October  25,  being  the  third  day 
of  the  ninth  moon  and  the  26th  year  of  the  reign 
of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu,  the  Son  of  Heaven. 
I  have  joined,  or  rather  founded,  an  organization  to 
be  known  as  the  Up-Against-It  Society.     I  have  invited 
His  Imperial  Majesty  Kuang  Hsu  to  be  the  Chief  Grand 
Muckamuck,  for  he  certainly  seems  to  be  up  against  it  as 
hard  as  anybody  in  these  parts,  and  Her  Royal  Majesty 
the  Empress  Dowager  will  be  elected  Chief  Ornery  Mem- 
ber.    I  think  she  could  hold  that  job  with  a  degree  of 
success   that  could   not   be   surpassed   anywhere   in   the 
world.     The  members  of  this  organization  will  be  chiefly 
the    newspaper   correspondents    who   have    been    horn- 


110  ORDERED    TO   CHINA 

swoggled  and  cheated  and  swindled  since  the  first  of  this 
cruel  war.  Life  is  too  short  to  detail  the  experiences 
this  band  has  undergone.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  not  one 
•who  has  been  in  the  battle  has  escaped  without  many 
scars.  It  was  but  natural  that  your  humble  servant 
should  get  his  turn,  too,  and  he  has  had  it.  He  was  ex- 
pecting it,  but  the  shock  nevertheless  was  one  sufficient 
almost  to  upset  his  nervous  system.  The  tale  is  a  short 
one  and  I  will  tell  it. 

When  I  arrived  here  on  the  13th  or  the  14th — I  don't 
remember  now  which — I  immediately  filed  a  cable  to  the 
office,  telling  them  that  I  was  here  and  giving  them  what 
little  news  I  was  able  to  gather.  The  Government  has  a 
telegraph  line  here,  which,  on  occasion,  is  open  to  cor- 
respondents to  the  extent  of  sixty-word  messages.  I 
boiled  my  information  down  to  sixty  words  and  fired 
it  along  over  the  government  telegraph  to  Tien  Tsin,  that 
being  as  far  as  the  Government  will  carry  it.  Before 
leaving  Tien  Tsin  I  had  arranged  with  Mr.  E.,  of  the 
American  Trading  Company,  to  forward  any  telegrams 
I  might  send.  That  was  beautiful — couldn't  be  improved 
upon.  The  next  day  I  sent  another  the  same  way,  and 
the  next  another,  and  so  on,  in  the  innocence  of  my  heart, 
day  by  day  firing  off  all  the  good  news  I  could  get,  and 
one  day  even  going  to  the  trouble  of  getting  the  special 
permission  of  General  Chaffee  to  file  321  words  all  at 
once.     Beautiful,  wasn't  it?     Yes,  just  beautiful. 

Well,  to-night,  when  I  went  to  the  telegraph  office 
with  my  modest  little  sixty-word  cable  and  handed  it  in 
at  the  window,  the  arch-demon  there  said  to  me  blandly  : 

"  Ah,  by  the  way,  those  messages  you  have  been  send- 
ing are  still  lying  in  the  office  at  Tien  Tsin.  Nobody 
calls  for  them  and  they  are  there  yet." 

Now,  you  know  I'm  a  good  deal  of  a  philosopher  in  a 
small  way.  I  guess  it  was  that  fact  that  saved  me.  I  am 
certain  that,  had  there  not  been  a  strain  of  philosophy  in 
me  I  would  have  jumped  through  the  hole  in  the  wall  and 
choked  that  demon  to  death  on  the  spot.  As  it  was,  I 
said,  with  that  "  camness  "  that  Josiah  Allen's  wife  de- 
lights to  talk  about,  "  Well."  Just  that  and  nothing 
more.    "  Well/'  I  said 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  111 

"  Yes,"  said  the  demon  without  even  so  much  as  crack- 
ing a  smile,  "  you  see,  nobody  called  for  them  and  they 
are  there  yet." 

"  Oh,"  I  said,  gathering  myself  together  in  bits.  "  Oh, 
he  didn't  call,  hey?  Well,  he  must  be  a  blundering 
fellow  and  of  course  you  couldn't  notify  me  of  that  fact. 
How  many  are  there  ?  " 

"  Oh,"  he  said  cheerfully,  "  they  are  all  there.  We 
haven't  lost  any  of  them." 

Beautiful,  wasn't  it?  I  could  have  choked  him  to 
death  and  shouted  with  joy.  Yes,  I  could  have  com- 
mitted any  of  the  uncivilized  acts  that  the  civilized 
soldiers  have  been  committing  out  here — could  have  done 
it  with  a  clear  conscience  and  still  chortled  happily,  but 
of  course  I  wouldn't  give  the  blithering  idiot  a  chance 
to  see  that  I  felt  in  any  way  put  out  and  let  him  have  the 
laugh  on  me. 

Of  course  he  didn't  have  the  sense  to  understand  just 
how  serious  the  matter  was.  The  cables  represented 
considerably  more  than  $i,ooo,  to  say  nothing  of  my 
own  reputation.  Here  I  had  been  away  from  Tien  Tsin 
since  October  8,  and  the  office  hadn't  heard  a  word  of  me 
or  from  me.  Well,  I  gritted  my  teeth  and  grinned  a 
sickly  sort  of  grin,  and  told  him  to  please  have  the  three 
last  messages  I  had  sent  forwarded  across  the  street  from 
the  Tien  Tsin  Government  Office  to  the  cable  office. 
Then  I  went  out  and  kicked  myself  around  the  Temple 
of  Agriculture  half  a  dozen  times,  meantime  calling  on 
all  the  brass  gods  in  the  place  to  inflict  the  proper 
measure  of  punishment  on  the  encumbered  earth.  Oh,  it 
was  beautiful !  Then  I  went  off  and  organized  the  Up- 
Against-It  Society.  Don't  you  think  it  was  justifiable? 
Well,  I  do.  I  have  told  the  story  to  General  Chaffee,  and 
he  will  have  an  investigation  made.  That's  all  it  will 
amount  to. 

Meantime,  what  the  office  thinks  is  a  mystery  to  me. 
But  as  I  haven't  heard  from  them  they  probably  think 
that  there  hasn't  been  any  news  and  that  that  man  Cham- 
berlin  in  China  is  a  great  man  to  save  money  by  not 
cabling  when  things  are  dull.  I  hope  so,  at  any  rate.  I 
have  written  Mr.  Lord  and  told  him  about  it — at  least,  I 


112  ORDEREDTOCHINA 

shall  write  him  when  I  get  through  cussing  and  advising 
with  the  brass  gods  that  abound  here  about  the  proper 
amount  of  vengeance  that  should  be  meted  out.  The 
least  the  telegraph  people  could  have  done  for  me  would 
have  been  to  notify  me  when  my  first  message  was  unde- 
livered, rather  than  wait  ten  or  fifteen  days  and  then  tell 
me  that  I  was  lost  to  the  world.  However,  as  I  said 
before,  there  is  just  a  grain  of  philosophy  in  my  make-up 
and  I  take  it  as  one  of  the  fortunes  of  war.  It  is  no 
worse  than,  nor  half  as  bad  as,  the  mishaps  that  have  be- 
fallen some  of  my  unfortunate  fellow  writers.  You  will 
pardon  me  for  not  writing  about  anything  else  to-day, 
but  this  subject  seems  somehow  to  be  uppermost  in  my 
mind.  There  are  volumes  that  I  wish  to  say  on  it,  but  I 
guess  that  I  have  gone  as  far  as  advisable. 

Peking^  Friday,  October  26,  1900,  being  the  fourth 
day  of  the  ninth  moon,  of  the  26th  year  of  the 
reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

The  Up-Against-Its  are  getting  along  famously.  I 
got  another  smash  right  between  the  eyes  to-night  and 
I'm  cheerful  as  a  billy-goat  with  a  stomachful  of  green 
apples.  When  I  left  the  cable  office  last  night,  after  the 
news  that  I  told  you  yesterday,  I  thanked  my  lucky  stars 
that  it  was  no  worse  and  said  to  myself,  "  Well,  at  last 
the  office  knows  that  I  am  here,  at  all  events."  Now, 
you  would  think  that  was  justified,  wouldn't  you,  in  view 
of  the  fact  that  I  had  $300  on  deposit  with  the  cable 
people  in  Tien  Tsin  to  prepay  any  messages  I  might  send 
as  far  as  Taku,  where  they  would  be  sent  by  the  regular 
cable  company,  collect  to  New  York.  But  there's  many 
a  slip  'twixt  the  cup  and  the  lip.  I  guess  you've  heard 
that,  haven't  you?  When  I  went  to  the  telegraph  office 
to-night  the  demon  said  : 

"  Oh,  by  the  way,  the  telegraph  people  wouldn't  accept 
those  messages  last  night,  because  they  were  not  written 
on  the  blanks  of  the  company.  I  tell  you  we're  damn 
mad  about  it,  after  our  taking  the  trouble  to  take  the 
messages  there." 

I  said,  "  I'm  glad  you're  damn  mad  about  it,  but  I 
don't  see  just  why  you're  mad.     I'm  not." 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  113 

"  Well,"  he  said,  "  it  don't  matter  much  to  you,  but 
after  we  went  clear  across  to  their  offices  with  the  mes- 
sages we're  damn  mad  that  they  didn't  take  them." 

I  told  him  it  certainly  was  a  shame  that  they  should 
have  been  put  to  so  much  trouble,  and  then  I  remarked 
that  the  most  discriminating  man  I  had  met  in  Peking 
was  the  man  who  had  assigned  him  (the  demon)  to 
quarters,  and  I  left  him  to  chew  over  that. 

I  don't  know  whether  he  has  figured  it  out  yet.  He 
said  "  Yes,  sir,"  when  I  made  the  remark.  You  see,  the 
Emperor  had  one  temple  in  the  Temple  of  Agriculture 
grounds  that  was  devoted  to  the  blessing  of  manure.  He 
would  come  once  a  year  to  that  temple  and  put  a  heap  of 
manure  on  the  altar  and  get  the  brass  god  to  bless  it. 
Well,  the  demon  lives  in  that  temple. 

The  whole  experience  of  the  cables  reminds  one  of 
another  incident.  It  happened  in  Cuba  during  the 
Spanish  war.  The  old  Kanapaha  hustled  into  Port 
Antonio  one  day  with  the  exclusive  story  of  a  fight.  She 
was  away  ahead  of  everybody  and  I  went  ashore  elated 
with  the  success  that  was  about  to  be  achieved.  The 
message  was  already  written  and  I  hurried  to  the 
telegraph  office  as  fast  as  my  legs  could  carry  me  to  get 
the  message  ofif  for  New  York.  The  telegraph  office 
was  in  charge  of  two  young  women.  They  took  the 
message,  and,  together,  began  counting  the  words  in  it, 
I  fuming  and  sweating  and  urging  them  to  hurry.  I 
tried  to  induce  them  to  start  the  message  and  count  the 
words  afterward.  I  hustled  to  the  door  every  minute  or 
so  to  see  if  anything  was  to  be  seen  of  my  rivals.  Then 
I  hustled  back  and  pleaded  with  the  girls  to  hurry. 
They  counted  once,  then  twice,  then  three  times.  Then 
they  argued  on  the  number  of  words  and  said,  "  $ioo, 
please,"  or  some  amount  like  that.  I  forked  out.  They 
said  they'd  send  the  message.  I  gazed  anxiously  out  to 
sea  when  I  left  the  office,  and  as  no  rival  boat  was  in 
sight  I  sighed  contentedly,  with  a  sense  of  duty  well  per- 
formed. Then  I  went  leisurely  about  the  work  of  get- 
ting my  ship  coaled  and  myself  back  to  work. 

In  the  course  of  time  I  went  aboard  and  we  got  back' 
to  the  scene  of  action  at  Santiago.     In  a  few  days  we 


114  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

went  back  to  Port  Antonio.  Again  I  went  to  the  office 
of  the  telegraph  company.  There  were  the  sweet  young 
things.  One  of  them  recognized  me.  She  came  to  the 
window. 

"  Aren't  you  Mr.  Chamberlin?  "  she  asked. 

I  confessed  that  I  was. 

"  I'm  so  glad  you  came  in,"  she  said.  "  You  filed  a 
message  the  other  day  for  The  New  York  Sun,  didn't 
you?"_ 

Again  I  confessed. 

"  Well,  do  you  know,"  she  said,  "  we  miscounted  the 
words  and  we  were  one  short.  Dreadfully  stupid  of  us, 
wasn't  it?     You  owe  us  for  one  more  word." 

"  Oh,  that's  all  right,"  I  said,  and  threw  down  a  shilling 
to  pay,  and  started  out. 

"  I'm  so  glad  you  came  in,"  she  twittered  as  I  walked 
away.     "  Now  we  can  send  the  message." 

Well,  that's  the  story.  I  wasn't  so  philosophic  then  as 
I  am  now,  and  I  think  I  took  it  more  to  heart.  I  fear 
that  the  opinion  I  expressed  then  sadly  shocked  the  maiden 
sensibilities  of  those  young  women.  At  all  events, 
always  after  that  time  there  was  an  oppressive  lack  of 
cordiality  when  I  called  at  that  cable  office.  Now,  here  it 
is  different  unless  the  demon  has  thought  out  my  opinion 
of  him. 

To  cut  this  letter  short,  I  have  succeeded  to-night, 
with  the  aid  of  Major-General  Adna  R.  Chaffee,  Briga- 
dier-General James  M.  Wilson,  United  States  Minister 
Conger,  and  a  crowd  of  supernumeraries,  in  getting 
through  my  first  message  from  Peking  to  The  Sun. 
Probably  you  have  read  it,  so  nothing  further  need  be 
said.  I  trust  you  will  agred  with  me  that  the  Up- 
Against-It  Club  is  an  organization  fully  justified  by  the 
circumstances,  and,  with  Kuang  Hsu  as  Grand  Mogul 
and  the  Empress  Dowager  as  Chief  Ornery  Member,  and 
with  your  humble  servant  and  his  fellows  as  star  kickers, 
there  opens  before  it  a  career  the  equal  of  that  of  the 
Fifty  Million  Club.  My  mind  is  still  somewhat  wrought 
up  by  these  events,  and  you  will  again  pardon  me  for 
burdening  you  with  a  matter  which  can  at  best  be  of  only 
incidental  interest  to  you. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  115 

Peking,  Saturday,  Octobter  27,  1900,  being  the  fifth 
day  of  the  ninth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the 
reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu,  Chief  Mogul  of  the 
Society  of  Up-Against-Its. 

I  have  gotten  over  my  grumpiness  and  am  in  consid- 
erably better  humor,  for  I  have  learned  positively  that  the 
cable  I  sent  last  night  got  through,  at  least  to  Shanghai, 
and  if  it  got  there  there  is  no  reason  why  it  should  not 
have  gone  farther,  so  I  assume — true,  not  without  some 
misgivings — that  it  has  reached  New  York.  Of  course, 
misgivings,  under  the  circumstances,  are  forgiveable. 
They  say  good  comes  out  of  everything,  and  I  don't  know 
but  that  good  has  come  out  of  the  incidents  that  led  to 
the  forming  of  the  Up-Against-It  Society. 

You  see,  they  had  a  limit  of  sixty  words  on  the  gov- 
ernment line,  beyond  which  no  correspondent  could  go. 
Now,  sixty  words,  when  it  costs  $1.52  a  word  to  send, 
may  sound  like  a  good  deal,  but  it  is  mighty  little,  after 
all.  It  is  all  right  for  the  relation  of  the  bare  facts  of  a 
news  incident.  When  it  comes  to  discussing  the  points 
of  a  question,  it  is  just  nothing  at  all.  Now,  having  been 
so  badly  treated  by  the  government  telegraph,  I  had  the 
right  to  some  compensation,  so  I  wrote  a  long  dispatch, 
that  is,  400  or  500  words,  and  took  it  to  General  Chaffee 
and  asked  him  to  order  it  sent.  He  marked  it  O.  K.  and 
fired  it  off,  and  he  told  me,  in  addition,  that  at  any  time 
when  I  had  a  dispatch  that  was  over  the  limit  he  would  be 
glad  to  do  the  same,  provided  there  were  not  too  many  of 
them.  So  you  see  that  in  the  future  I  have  practically 
carte  blanche,  a  thing  that  would  not  have  happened  under 
any  other  circumstances  than  those  narrated  in  the  two  let- 
ters I  have  written  you  in  the  last  two  days,  giving  you  the 
facts  that  led  to  the  organization  of  the  Up-Against-It 
Society. 

There  is  not  much  to  tell  you,  beyond  this.  I  wonder 
a  great  deal  how  you  and  the  babies  and  all  are  getting 
on,  and  whether  you  think  as  much  about  the  absent  Lad 
as  he  thinks  about  home.  I  wonder,  also,  about  Father 
and  Mother,  and  how  they  are  getting  on.  I  haven't 
written  them  as  often  as  I  have  wanted  to,  but  circum- 
stances have  been  such  that  it  has  been  simply  impossible 


116  ORDEREDTOCHINA 

for  me  to  find  the  time  to  write  more  than  the  daily  letter 
I  have  written  you.  As  you  may  well  imagine,  while  it 
has  been  a  great  pleasure  to  write  you,  it  has  often  been  a 
tax,  too,  for  time  out  here  in  this  place  of  distances  is 
almost  as  valuable  as  money.  When  you  know  the  con- 
ditions of  camp  life  you  will  better  understand. 

Night  work  is  practically  out  of  the  question.  There  is 
no  such  thing  here  as  gas  or  electric  light,  and  there  are 
not  even  lamps.  Everything  is  candle-light  after  the  sun 
goes  down.  When  the  Commissary  runs  short  of  candles, 
as  he  has  done  on  several  occasions,  there  is  not  even  that, 
and  work  of  any  kind  is  out  of  the  question.  It  isn't  like 
a  modern  town.  When  we  get  short  of  things  we  can't 
run  down  to  the  store  and  buy  them.  There  are  no  stores 
to  buy  things  in — that  is,  things  that  Europeans  require. 
We  just  have  to  do  without.  For  instance,  I  am  running 
short  of  lead  pencils,  and  I  have  had  to  send  to  Shanghai, 
800  miles  down  the  coast,  to  get  a  fresh  supply.  That  is 
just  a  sample  of  the  difficulties  that  are  daily  incidents  of 
life  with  an  army.  So,  if  you  notice  any  shortcomings  in 
my  letters,  please  charge  them  up  to  inability  rather  than 
to  a  fault  of  the  heart. 

Sunday,  October,  28,  1900,  in  Peking,  China,  on 
the  sixth  day  of  the  ninth  moon,  of  the  26th  year 
of  the  reign  of  Kuang  Hsu. 

This  is  Sunday,  but,  as  I  think  I  have  told  you  before, 
there  isn't  any  difference  between  Sunday  and  any  other 
dry  in  China.  People  go  about  their  work,  or  rather 
about  their  loafing,  the  same  as  on  any  other  day.  While 
we  Christians  pretend  to  keep  the  day,  and  do  abstain, 
ourselves,  more  or  less  from  work,  we  see  that  the  China- 
men in  our  employ  don't  lose  a  trick  and  go  on  with  their 
work  for  us  just  the  same  as  usual.  The  more  I  see  of 
Christianity  in  practice  in  a  heathen  country,  the  more 
convinced  I  become  that  there  is  a  heap  of  hypocrisy 
in  this  world  of  ours  and  in  this  Christian  civilization. 
What  with  missionaries  running  around  selling  things 
that  they  know  are  stolen,  calling  for  blood  to  avenge 
blood,  and  in  all  ways  demanding  an  eye  for  an  eye  and 
a  tooth  for  a  tooth  wherever  it  is  possible  for  them  to  do 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  117 

it,  it  seems  to  me  that  so-called  Christianity,  or  Chris- 
tianity as  it  is  practiced  in  a  heathen  country,  is  made  to 
cover  a  multitude  of  sins. 

I  don't  want  to  criticise  unjustly,  but  it  certainly  seems 
to  me  that  there  is  a  heap  more  of  the  "  do  others,  or  they 
will  do  you,"  than  there  is  of  the  "  do  unto  others  as  you 
would  have  them  do  unto  you,"  and,  in  addition  to  that, 
there  is  care  taken  to  see  that  you  do  it  first,  too.  I  sup- 
pose it  is  the  way  of  the  world,  though,  and  it  is  not  the 
business  of  a  heathen  like  myself  to  complain,  so  we  will 
drop  the  subject,  temporarily  at  least. 

I  sent  off  another  cable  to-day,  which,  if  it  got  through, 
you  no  doubt  read.  Now,  having  spoken  my  little  piece 
for  the  day,  I  will  say  good-bye   again, 

Peking,  Monday,  October  29,  1900,  being  the  seventh 
day  of  the  ninth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign 
of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu,  the  Grand  Mogul  of  the 
Society    of    the     Up-Against-Its,  and    Adopted 
Son    of    the    Dowager    Empress,    Chief    Ornery 
Member. 
Here's  the  start  of  a  fresh  week,  with,  unfortunately, 
very  little  progress  made  in  the  negotiations  to  restore 
peace  to  this  benighted  Chinaland.     The  ways  of  diplo- 
macy are  slow,  and  I  suppose  we  must  not  get  out  of  pa- 
tience with  them.   There  was  a  meeting  of  the  Ministers 
yesterday,  and  after  it  was  over  I  had  a  talk  with  one  or 
two  of  them.  The  product  of  that  talk  was  in  the  meagre 
cable  that  I  sent  last  night.    Of  course  there  was  a  great 
deal  in  addition  to  what  I  sent  that  it  would  not  be  proper 
to  print  at  this  time,  but  it  would  be  all  old  news  before  it 
could  reach  you  by  letter,  and,  there,  I  won't  take  up  my 
own  time  writing  it  now  or  your  time  reading  it. 

I  rode  through  the  Hateman  again,  this  afternoon,  and 
picked  up  a  few  more  bargains,  which  I  may  or  may  not 
be  able  to  send  home.  I  don't  know  yet.  If  I  can't  send 
them  I  will  bring  them,  so  it  is  all  the  same.  The  stuff 
that  is  for  sale  is,  of  course,  all  stolen  stuff,  but  that  can't 
be  helped.  The  original  owners  never  can  get  it  back,  and 
the  title  to  it  of  a  purchaser,  under  the  law  here,  is  per- 
fectly clear.    Everybody  is  in  the  business  of  buying  and 


118  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

selling.  It  is  the  custom.  Take  what  you  can  get  as 
cheap  as  you  can  get  it,  and  ask  no  questions. 

One  of  the  extremely  interesting  things  about  Peking 
at  the  present  time  is  the  way  the  various  nations  operate 
the  sections  of  the  city.  You  know,  when  they  came  here 
the  city  was  divided  up  into  districts,  and  each  nation  took 
a  district  to  run.  The  American  officers  sent  out  word  to 
the  Chinese  that  they  must  return  to  their  homes  and 
stores  and  resume  their  business.  They  guaranteed  them 
protection  from  robbery  and  the  maintenance  of  order. 
The  result  is  that  the  American  district  is  overcrowded 
with  people.  Business  is  going  on  just  as  it  was  before 
the  invasion.  The  people  seem  to  be  happy  and  con- 
tented. The  only  thing  that  is  distinctly  different  from 
the  old  regime  is  the  cleanliness  of  the  place.  The  Ameri- 
cans are  making  the  people  keep  things  clean,  a  thing 
unheard  of  before  anywhere  in  China.  The  result  of  this 
will  be  that  if  an  epidemic  comes  this  winter,  it  seems 
likely  it  will  do  its  work  in  the  other  districts  and  ours  will 
be  exempt. 

The  Japanese  section  of  the  city  is  the  same  as  ours, 
overcrowded  with  people.  The  Japs  followed  our  ex- 
ample, and  they  protect  the  Chinese  and  prevent  their 
being  looted  and  robbed.  But  there  is  this  important  dif- 
ference. Their  district  is  indescribably  dirty.  They  have 
done  nothing  to  compel  the  Chinese  to  come  out  of  their 
filth. 

Next  to  our  own  district,  the  best,  in  point  of  cleanli- 
ness, is  the  English  district,  but  still  in  that  it  does  not 
compare  with  ours.  There  are  not  nearly  so  many  people 
in  the  English  district  as  we  have.  The  reason  is  that 
the  Sikh  soldiers,  who  are  the  only  English  soldiers  here, 
are  great  thieves,  and,  in  spite  of  their  officers  they  will 
rob  the  Chinamen  whenever  they  get  the  chance. 

Last  of  all  comes  the  German  district.  It  is  deserted. 
If  ever  there  was  gathered  anywhere  on  earth  a  band  of 
pirates  it  is  in  the  German  army.  The  German  district  of 
Peking  is  practically  deserted.  The  reason  is  that  the 
German  soldiers,  with  or  without  the  knowledge  of  their 
officers,  steal  everything  they  can  lay  their  hands  on  that 
can  be  carried  off.    For  instance,  after  their  visit  the  other 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  119 

day  to  the  Forbidden  City,  as  a  guard  to  Count  von  Wal- 
dersee,  an  American  officer,  of  General  Wilson's  staff, 
went  through  to  see  what  had  been  taken.  He  had 
made  other  trips  through  the  city  and  knew  what  should 
be  there.  He  reported  that  there  was  nothing  left 
that  could  be  carried  off.  The  moment  a  Chinaman  tries 
to  open  his  shop  in  the  German  section  of  the  city,  the 
German  soldier  comes  around  and  steals  his  stock.  It's 
a  great  game,  I  tell  you.  They  have  no  shame  about  it  at 
all.  How  history  will  record  the  matter,  and  how  the 
civilized  world  will  view  it  when  the  facts  become  known, 
remains  to  be  seen. 

Peking,  Tuesday,  October  30,  1900,  the  same  being,  in 
Chinese,  the  ninth  moon,  26th  year,  H.  I.  M. 
Kuang  Hsu. 

To-morrow  is  the  day  when  we  are  all  going  to  be  mas- 
sacred. 

Now,  don't  get  excited  about  it,  for  most  of  the  brass 
gods  in  this  kingdom  have  been  torn  down  from  their 
altars  and  they  are  not  working,  so  I  guess  there  is  a 
chance  that  it  won't  come  off.  At  least,  I  am  not  going  to 
lose  any  sleep  over  it,  and  I  merely  tell  you  about  it  as  one 
of  the  incidents  of  life  in  China. 

The  ninth  day  of  the  ninth  moon  is  set  apart  here  for 
the  fete  of  Kwan  Ti,  the  God  of  War,  and  of  Tung,  a 
Ruler  in  Hades.  Now,  from  the  start  of  the  trouble 
here  this  day  has  been  the  day  fixed  for  the  final  mas- 
sacre, or  the  driving  out,  of  all  the  foreigners,  or  foreign 
devils,  as  they  are  called,  and  the  ignorant  people  think 
that  really  to-morrow  the  God  of  War  will  descend  on  the 
foreign  armies  and  annihilate  them.  Unfortunately  for 
them,  perhaps,  the  boss  brass  god  representing  Kwan  Ti 
has  been  captured  by  the  Americans  and  is  now  securely 
packed  and  boxed  and  on  its  way  to  the  Cullom  Memorial 
Hall  at  West  Point,  where  he  will  be  an  exhibit  in  the  ages 
to  follow.  So  I  guess  it's  safe  to  say  that  he  won't  be 
doing  business  here. 

The  only  people  who  are  worrying  about  the  hob- 
goblin stories  are  the  missionaries,  and  when  you  laugh 
at  them  about  their  fears  they  say,  in  a  superior  sort  of 


120  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

way,  "  Oh,  well,  you  don't  know.  You  are  a  newcomer 
here.  You  don't  understand  what  devils  these  Chinese 
are."  Of  course  there  is  no  answer  to  that  argument,  for 
they  certainly  have  lived  in  the  country  a  long  time,  and 
you  haven't,  but  it's  dollars  to  doughnuts  that  not  one 
fool  Chinaman  will  raise  his  hand.  If  there  is  anything 
like  an  outbreak  there  will  surely  follow  a  massacre  that 
will  make  anything  in  history  pale.  At  the  first  sign  of 
trouble  a  guard  will  be  put  at  every  gate  to  prevent  any- 
one from  leaving,  and  then  the  killing  will  begin,  and  it 
will  not  end  until  every  last  Chinaman  is  dead.  There 
won't  be  any  fooling  about  it.  The  whole  thing,  however, 
is  ridiculous,  and  to-morrow  when  I  write  you  again  I 
shall  be  at  a  loss  to  find  something  to  tell  you,  as  usual. 

Wednesday,  October  31,  1900,  Peking,  ninth  day, 
ninth  moon,  26th  year  Kuang  Hsu.  H.  I.  M. 

Well,  it's  come  and  gone — at  least  it  will  be  gone  in  a 
little  while.  I  mean  this  horrible  (?)  day,  when  we  were 
all  to  be  killed  ofif.  As  I  predicted  in  my  letter  yesterday, 
I  don't  know  just  what  there  is  to  write  you  about  that 
will  interest  you.  It  has  been  just  like  every  other  day, 
with  not  a  peep  from  a  heathen  to  break  the  monotony. 
The  boxed-up  God  of  War  was  surely  off  duty.  I  don't 
talk  enough  Chinese  to  be  able  to  tell  you  what  excuse  the 
natives  give  for  his  non-appearance,  but,  anyway,  they 
must  realize  that  he's  a  pretty  bum  sort  of  a  god,  and 
maybe  in  the  future  they  won't  put  so  much  faith  in  him 
as   they  have   in   the   past.      Let   us   hope   so,   anyway. 

I  have  spent  a  large  part  of  the  day  joshing  the  mis- 
sionaries and  having  fun  generally  with  the  people  who 
were  scared.  It  was  great  sport  to  confess  to  them  that 
I  am  "  a  newcomer  " — sort  of  an  "  I  told  you  so  "  game, 
but  I  think  it  was  excusable,  don't  you?  There  was 
another  meeting  of  the  Ministers  to-day,  but  they  did  not 
accomplish  much,  because  they  find  it  slow  work  to  cable 
to  their  governments  and  get  replies.  For  that  reason 
they  decided  to  let  a  little  longer  time  elapse  between 
meetings,  and  they  won't  meet  again  until  next  Monday. 
In  the  meantime  it's  a  case  of  wait  with  patience.  Gen- 
eral Wilson  is  expecting  orders  every  day  to  go  away,  and 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  121 

when  he  goes  I  suppose  that  I'll  have  to  hustle  and  find  a 
new  place  to  live.  I  don't  know  yet  what  I'll  do,  but  I 
guess  I  will  get  along  all  right.  I've  any  number  of 
friends  among  the  officers,  and  will  want  for  nothing,  I 
think.  However,  to  paraphrase  an  old  saying,  a  little 
hardship  now  and  then  is  relished  by  the  best  of  men.  I'm 
not  going  to  anticipate  trouble.  It  doesn't  pay,  as  I've  told 
you  a  hundred  times.  As  they  say  out  here,  take  what 
comes  and  thank  the  Lord  you  are  alive. 

Well,  good-bye  for  another  day.  My  candle  is  burning 
low.  It's  the  last  one  I've  got.  The  Commissary  is  out 
of  candles,  and  the  Lord  knows  when  I'll  get  another.  If 
I  don't  have  one  to-morrow  I'll  miss  your  letter  for  a  day, 
for  it  is  simply  impossible  for  me  to  find  time  in  the  day- 
light to  write. 

Saturday^  Peking,  November  2,  being  the  eleventh 
day  of  the  ninth  moon,  26th  year  H.  I.  M.  Kuang 
Hsu. 

This  will  be  a  hasty  letter,  and  I  guess  you  will  get  it 
alone,  before  the  seven  or  eight  others  I  have  written  since 
I  sent  off  my  last  batch — of  eleven,  I  think,  and,  by  the 
way,  like  a  dunderhead,  I  forgot  to  put  in  that  picture 
that  I  told  you  all  about.  I  have  it  here  before  me 
now,  and  I'll  keep  it  here  so  that  it  will  surely  get  into 
this  letter.  It  is  not  a  very  good  picture,  as  you  will  see, 
but  I  think  that  a  careful  perusal  of  the  features  will  re- 
lieve any  doubts  that  you  may  have  of  the  state  of  health 
of  your  most  humble  and  adoring  servant. 

But  to  get  down  to  the  facts  about  this  letter  case.  I 
have  been  mailing  letters  daily  in  the  post-office,  and  they 
won't  leave  in  time  to  catch  the  steamer  that  this  one  will 
go  on.  The  wherefore  is  that  General  Wilson  and  his 
aids  start  at  5  o'clock  in  the  morning  to  return  to  the 
United  States.  They  will  be  mounted  on  fast  horses  and 
will  make  the  trip  to  Tien  Tsin  in  two  and  a  half  days,  and 
there  will  get  a  steamer  that  is  waiting  to  take  them 
straight  across  to  Nagasaki,  Japan,  where  they  will  make 
a  close  connection  with  a  steamer  for  the  States.  That 
beats  the  mail  all  hollow,  and  this  letter  will  be  entrusted 
to  their  tender  care,  so,  when  you  get  one  letter  alone,  if 


122  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

this  should  catch  the  steamer  that  I  expect  it  will,  please 
don't  be  disappointed ;  rather  be  thankful  for  mercies  re- 
ceived— hey,  sweetheart.  And  now  I'm  barred  from  writ- 
ing you  a  long  letter,  for  to  find  enough  to  write  a  long 
letter  about  I'd  have  to  go  over  the  same  ground  that  I've 
been  traveling,  and  when  you  got  the  other  letters  they'd 
be  stale.  So,  confining  myself  strictly  to  the  day's  news,  I 
can  say  about  four  hours  ago  I  filed  a  500-word  cable  to 
TJic  Smi,  which  will  cost  them  $887. 

There  is  still  mighty  little  to  tell  you  about  their  get- 
ting through  those  villainous  negotiations,  but  I  think  it 
very  certain  that  just  as  soon  as  the  Ministers  of  the 
allied  forces  finish  up  their  work  of  coming  together — 
about  the  time  you  receive  this  letter,  probably — they 
will  meet  Li  Hung  Chang  and  Prince  Ching,  and  then  it 
will  take  a  mighty  little  time  indeed  to  wind  the  whole 
business  up  and  restore  peace  to  China  and  to  the  rest  of 
the  world. 

General  Wilson's  going  away,  unhappily,  leaves  me 
homeless.  You  know  I  have  been  living  with  him  and  his 
aides,  and  we  have  gotten  along  splendidly  together.  I 
don't  like  changing  about,  and,  least  of  all,  leaving  my 
happy  home,  but  these  things  do  happen,  and  I'll  have  to 
hunt  a  new  roost  in  this  desolate  wilderness  of  Peking. 
Luckily,  General  Chafifee,  who  is  in  command  here,  is  a 
fine  fellow,  and  this  afternoon  he  told  me  that  when  Gen- 
eral Wilson  left  I  must  come  and  be  taken  care  of  by  him. 
That's  what  I  will  do,  but  just  what  kind  of  quarters  I 
shall  get  is,  of  course,  at  present  impossible  to  say.  Any- 
way, it  is  in  the  compound,  surrounded  by  the  troops,  so 
don't  for  an  instant  think  that  I  shall  not  be  perfectly 
safe. 

Of  course,  you  haven't  had  cold  weather  yet.  I  just 
want  to  say  that  if  the  ice  trust  were  over  here  it  would 
be  out  of  a  job.  Cold?  Gee  whiz!  it  would  freeze  a 
monkey  wrench. 

General  Wilson,  I  want  to  say,  has  been  as  good  a  friend 
to  me  as  I  ever  had.  He  has  simply  taken  hold  and  treated 
me  royally,  and  it  is  his  influence,  more  than  anything 
else,  that  has  given  me  the  open  sesame  to  about  every- 
thing in  Peking,  and  that  has  assured  me  of  a  place  to 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  123 

stay  after  he  has  gone.  For  he  went  to  General  Chaffee, 
I  know,  and  told  the  General  what  he  wanted  done,  and 
you  can  imagine  how  grateful  I  feel  toward  him. 

We  expect  a  mail  in  to-morrow,  and  I  certainly  hope 
that  I  shall  get  a  batch  of  letters  straight  from  home. 

Now,  I  will  devote  about  two  minutes  to  telling  you 
about  myself,  if  you  would  like  to  hear  it.  I  think  I 
weigh  a  little  more  than  I  did  when  I  started  from 
home.  I  am  eating  three  meals  a  day,  which  is  one  more 
than  I  ate  at  home.  I  haven't  an  ache  or  a  pain  about  me. 
I  haven't  had  as  much  as  a  headache,  and,  cold  as  it  has 
been  here,  I  have  not  had  a  cold  in  the  head  yet,  and  I've 
no  cough  at  all.  I  am  suffering  severely  from  uncut 
hair,  and  if  I  don't  find  a  barber  pretty  soon  I'll  be  a  good 
imitation  of  the  Hon.  Buffalo  Bill.  It's  pretty  nearly  long 
enough  to  curl  now.  About  another  inch,  and  I'll  be  fully 
equipped  for  a  career  on  the  stage,  at  least.  I  am  out  of 
doors  most  of  the  time,  and  I  haven't  worn  an  overcoat 
yet.  I  go  around  in  a  sweater.  That  is  the  reason,  prob- 
ably, that  I  haven't  had  any  colds.  I  am  collecting  lots  of 
material  for  stories,  but  I  have  not  written  many  because 
I  have  not  had  a  place  to  write  at  night,  and  because  I 
have  had  so  much  to  do,  trotting  around  for  facts  for 
cables.  As  soon  as  I  get  settled  I  shall  set  apart  three 
hours  a  day  at  least  for  writing,  and  shall  hustle  up  a  lot 
of  stuff  that  I  have  been  accumulating.  Then,  as  soon 
as  this  blooming  Peace  Commission  winds  up,  I  shall  be 
ready  to  be  off,  which,  let  us  hope,  at  least,  will  be  soon. 

Peking,  November  4,  1900,  being  the  thirteenth  day 
of  the  ninth  moon,  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

This  has  turned  out  another  star  day.  I  had  two  letters 
from  home  and  have  been  trotting  around  on  air  all  the 
afternoon,  the  envy  of  everybody  who  didn't  get  any,  and 
that  included  about  every  American  in  Peking.  We  have 
all  been  looking  forward  for  a  week,  now,  for  the  arrival 
of  twenty-three  bags  of  mail  which,  it  was  telegraphed 
from  Tien  Tsin,  were  started  on  the  road  here  eight  days 
ago.  It  was  reported  last  night  that  they  would  surely 
get  here  to-day,  and  when  the  wagon  train  from  Tung 
Chow  got  in  this  morning,  and  the  drivers  said  they  didn't 


124  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

bring  the  mail,  there  was  a  howl  that  could  be  heard  half 
way  over  the  province  of  Pechili.  An  hour  after  this 
some  couriers  arrived  with  two  sacks  of  mail  and  a  small 
sack  for  the  Legation.  There  were  just  two  letters  in 
that  Legation  sack,  and  they  were  both  for  me.  They 
had  been  chasing  me  up  from  Yokohama  to  Shanghai, 
then  to  Tien  Tsin,  and  finally  to  Peking,  where  they 
caught  me.  I  can  tell  you  they  were  welcome,  if 
they  were  a  little  old.  The  last  one  was  dated  Sep- 
tember 17. 

Well,  your  letters  were  not  the  only  good  news  of  the 
day,  and  the  rest  came  at  the  Legation,  too.  After  I  had 
finished  the  letters,  I  went  in  to  see  the  Minister,  and, 
after  a  half-hour's  talk  with  him,  he  gave  me  to  under- 
stand that  he  and  the  other  Ministers  had  agreed  on  a  lot 
of  general  propositions  they  had  expected  to  disagree 
upon,  and  that  there  was  a  chance  of  their  meeting  Li 
Hung  Chang  and  Prince  Ching  within  a  week.  This 
means  that  it  won't  be  a  long  while  before  the  actual  ne- 
gotiations begin,  and  I  think  China  is  in  such  a  dilapidated 
state  that  she  will  give  in,  so  the  prospects  for  "  Home, 
Sweet  Home  "  are  a  heap  better  than  they  were.  I  gal- 
loped my  horse  home  with  a  light  heart,  I  can  tell  you,  and 
I  hustled  off  a  cable. 

All  the  Americans  here  seem  to  be  more  interested  in 
the  result  of  the  elections  in  the  United  States  Tuesday 
than  they  are  in  the  future  of  China,  and  Fm  a  very 
popular  person  about  the  camp,  because  I  have  tele- 
graphed Mr.  Lord  and  asked  him  to  cable  me  the  results 
for  the  benefit  of  the  crowd.  I  hope  the  cable  company 
will  hustle  the  message  through  for  me,  for  everybody 
is  anxious  as  can  be  about  the  election,  and  if  it  gets  here 
quickly  it  will  do  me  a  lot  of  good  in  the  way  of  making 
me  even  more  solid  in  this  business,  you  know.  I  have 
most  of  the  crowd  trained  now,  but  there  are  some  who 
waver  a  bit.  They  have  been  used  to  dealing  with  news- 
paper hacks,  and  they  don't  understand  what  it  is  to  give 
their  confidence  to  a  man.  I  don't  care  a  great  deal  now, 
for  I  have  lines  out  in  other  directions,  and  can  do  with- 
out any  one  man,  no  matter  how  big  he  is.  Well,  it's 
bedtime,  and  I'll  crawl  under  my  silk-covered  down  com- 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  125 

forter  that  cost  me  $5,  Mex.,  and  pull  it  up  tight,  and  sleep 
the  sleep  of  contentment. 

(This  letter  is  addressed  to  another  member  of  the  family.) 

Peking,  China,  Sunday,  November  4,  1900,  or,  as  the 
Chinese  say,  thirteenth  day,  ninth  moon,  26th  year, 
H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

It's  been  so  long  since  I  wrote  you  that  I've  for- 
gotten the  date,  but  I  remember  the  subject.  It  was  a 
ribald  dissertation  on  the  missionaries.  The  fact  that  I 
haven't  written  you  since  then  is  not  because  I  haven't 
wanted  to,  but  because  I  haven't  had  the  time  and  I've 
lacked  the  place  to  write.  I'm  not  much  better  off  now 
than  I  have  been  in  the  past.  I  am  writing  by  the  light 
of  a  single  candle  in  one  of  the  temples  in  the  garden  of 
the  Temple  of  Agriculture  and  a  brass  god  is  looking 
down  at  me — whether  approvingly  or  disapprovingly  I 
can't  say.  He  is  my  room  mate.  In  all  the  days  before 
the  allies  brought  death  and  destruction  to  China,  Kuang 
Hsu  used  to  come  here  once  a  year  and  crawl  on  his 
stomach  before  his  brass  godlets  and  pray  for  corn  or 
oats  or  potatoes.  I  don't  know  exactly  which  vegetable 
this  god  was  a  sponsor  for.  Maybe  he  was  the  boss  of 
the  sheep  or  the  goats,  and  not  of  the  vegetables.  At  any 
rate  he  is  out  of  a  job,  now,  and  from  appearances  he 
will  continue  to  be  for  some  time  to  come.  I  haven't  any 
use  for  him,  anyway,  and  he  isn't  a  troublesome  room 
mate. 

I  suppose  the  folks  have  kept  you  informed  of  my 
whereabouts.  I  left  Shanghai  September  28,  and  went 
to  Port  Arthur.  From  there  I  crossed  to  Taku,  thence 
I  went  by  rail  to  Tien  Tsin,  where  I  stayed  a  while,  and 
then  I  came  up  to  Peking  on  an  American  wagon  train. 
I  got  here  about  the  14th  and  I  have  been  here  ever  since, 
in  fine  health  and  spirits,  only  homesick  as  anybody  must 
be  who  is  cast  into  a  desolate  and  dirty  place  like  Peking. 
For  all  that,  I  have  had  a  great  deal  better  luck  than 
most  of  the  correspondents,  and  have  succeeded  in  living 
in  comparative  comfort  with  the  brass  god. 

I  haven't  changed  my  mind  a  bit  about  the  missionaries. 


126  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

Indeed  I  am  more  set  in  my  opinion  of  them  than  I  was 
when  I  wrote  you.  Their  conduct  here  has  been  Httle 
short  of  disgraceful.  As  you  know,  of  course,  by  the 
papers,  everybody  went  loot-mad  at  Tien  Tsin  and  here, 
and  the  missionaries  were  as  bad,  if  not  worse  than,  any- 
body else.  Here  is  a  sample  of  what  they  did.  Take 
the  case  of  one  missionary.  As  soon  as  the  allies  arrived 
he  boldly  took  possession  of  the  house  of  one  of  the 
Princes  who  was  wealthy  and  who  had  fled  with  the 
Court.  Then  he  sent  out  and  got  some  moneyed  men  and 
showed  them  the  store  of  treasure  he  had  and  boldly 
asked  for  bids.  He  sold  everything  in  the  home  except 
what  he  needed  for  his  own  use.  His  alleged  excuse  for 
doing  it  was  that  "  his  people  "  had  been  robbed  and  he 
had  the  right  to  compensate  himself  for  their  losses.  In 
other  words,  two  wrongs  make  a  right.  If  a  man  steals 
from  you,  you  steal  from  him. 

This  case  is  not  an  isolated  one.  These  men  knew 
where  the  rich  men  lived  in  Peking,  and  the  moment  it 
was  safe  to  do  it  they  descended  on  their  homes  and  took 
possession,  protecting  themselves  by  sticking  up  a  flag  of 
whatever  nationality  they  happened  to  belong  to.  A 
case  even  worse  than  the  one  cited  is  that  of  a 
missionary  who  found  six  soldiers  digging  for  loot  that 
they  learned  had  been  buried.  They  were  Americans, 
and,  under  the  orders  of  our  Government,  our  men  could 
take  nothing.  The  fact  that  these  men  were  disobeying 
orders  gave  the  missionary  an  advantage,  and  he 
frightened  them  away  by  telling  them  he  would  report 
them  to  their  officers.  They  left.  Half  an  hour  or  so 
afterwards  they  got  back  their  courage  and  started  back 
to  the  place.  They  got  there  just  in  time  to  find  the 
missionary  driving  off  with  the  treasure.  He  had  com- 
mandeered coolies  and  put  them  to  work  digging  up  the 
stuff,  silks  and  silver. 

You  will  understand  the  richness  of  the  hauls  some  of 
the  missionaries  have  made  when  you  know  the  Chinese 
custom,  which  is  to  keep  all  their  wealth  in  their  houses. 
The  average  rich  Chinaman  has  his  money  invested  in  fine 
silks,  furs,  and  silver  "  shoes,"  and  he  stores  it  away 
where  he  lives.     None  of  these  things  is  eas^  to  carr)^ 


ORDERED    TO   CHINA  127 

wHen  one  is  in  a  hurry,  and  the  wealthy  Princes  who 
followed  the  Court  on  its  expulsion  left  their  all  behind 
for  the  missionaries  to  get.  Neither  Russians  or  Sikhs  or 
French  have  been  worse  looters  than  some  so-called  Chris- 
tian missionaries,  and  the  worst  of  it  is  that  these  so-called 
Christians  have  no  shame  about  it.  They  admit  that  it 
is  all  true.  I  suppose  all  these  things  will  straighten 
themselves  out  in  the  Day  of  Reckoning,  when  the  sheep 
are  separated  from  the  goats,  and  if  some  of  these  fellows 
don't  get  in  the  goat  heap  I'll  miss  my  guess.  You  will 
understand,  of  course,  that  this  is  not  a  sweeping  condem- 
nation of  all  missionaries.  There  are  sheep  as  well  as 
goats. 

But  to  drop  the  missionaries  and  return  to  China. 
Practically  all  I  have  seen  of  it  is  a  picture  of  destruction 
that  it  would  take  a  volume  to  describe.  The  line  of 
march  of  the  allies  was  a  trail  of  fire  and  murder.  Up 
to  the  very  gates  of  Peking  nothing  was  left  standing 
that  would  burn,  and  nothing  was  left  living  that  was 
caught  sight  of.  If  the  Chinese  are  a  cruel  people  they 
will  probably  be  more  cruel  in  the  future,  for  they  have 
the  example  of  civilized  nations  to  follow.  Those  of  our 
people  who  have  denounced  the  heathen  as  inhuman  had 
better  keep  silent  hereafter.  If  there  is  anything  more 
inhuman  than  driving  a  bayonet  through  a  helpless  babe 
and  dangling  it  in  the  air  in  the  mother's  eyes  I  don't 
know  it.  It  is  little  wonder  that  at  Tung  Chow  and 
even  here  in  Peking  the  wells  were  found  full  of  dead 
women  who  had  jumped  into  them  and  drowned  them- 
selves in  terror  of  the  fate  that  would  meet  them  if  they 
remained  alive.  I  don't  suppose  the  story  of  the  horror 
of  that  march  will  ever  be  more  than  generalized  in  print. 
I  should  like  to  write  it,  but  I  was  not  there,  and  it  is  only 
at  first  hand  that  one  can  get  the  facts  for  such  a  story. 
Think  of  jabbing  a  bayonet  in  a  human  being  just  to  see 
him  jump,  and  of  shooting  at  a  poor  fleeing  devil  just 
to  see  if  you  can  hit  him  on  the  run ! 

These  are  pictures  of  the  French,  the  Russian,  and  in 
some  cases  of  the  English.  Thank  Heaven,  the  skirts 
of  the  Americans  are  clear  on  that  score.  I  haven't 
heard  pf  a  case  of  an  American  who  killed  unless  it  was 


128  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

necessary,  and  there  is  one  case  of  an  American  wEo  shot 
dead  two  EngHsh  soldiers  who  were  in  the  act  of  mal- 
treating an  aged  man.  They  were  justified  by  their 
superior  for  it,  too.  When  it  comes  to  steahng  we 
haven't  so  much  to  brag  about,  but  we  certainly  didn't 
carry  things  with  the  high  hand  the  others  did,  and 
when  our  men  were  caught  doing  it  they  were  punished. 
The  English  made  looting  a  business.  They  did  it 
systematically.  They  sent  their  Sikh  soldiers  out  to  a 
district  with  orders  to  bring  in  all  that  they  could  find 
of  value,  and  then  they  put  the  stuff  up  at  auction  and 
sold  it  to  the  highest  bidder,  just  as  if  they  had  come  by  it 
honestly.  The  proceeds  were  divided  among  the  officers 
of  the  army.  Our  officers  did  not  loot.  Our  men  who 
were  caught  at  it  were  punished.  I  know  of  two  who 
were  tried  by  court-martial.  One  was  sentenced  to  ten 
years'  imprisonment  at  hard  labor,  and  the  other  to  five 
years,  and  they  are  serving  their  sentences. 

While  we  have  been  able  to  control  our  own  men  we 
haven't  been  able  to  prevent  looting  of  property  under 
their  care  entirely.  For  instance  the  Forbidden  City, 
which  had  been  half  under  our  care  and  half  under  the  care 
of  the  Japanese,  has  been  effectively  looted.  Everything 
has  been  carried  away  except  things  too  heavy  or  things 
that  were  nailed  down,  and  this  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  no 
person  has  visited  the  city  without  first  giving  his  pledge 
not  to  touch  anything  in  it.  When  the  Court  fled  it  left 
behind  practically  all  its  servants  in  the  Forbidden  City 
and  they  are  there  still.  When  I  visited  the  place 
with  Bishop  M.  they  met  us  at  every  corner  and  offered 
tea.  We  had  about  finished  the  tour,  gone  into  all 
the  temples,  joshed  the  war  gods,  banged  the  bells 
that  in  ordinary  times  are  struck  only  to  wake  up  the 
gods  to  get  them  to  listen  to  royal  prayers,  and  done 
other  things  that  must  have  shocked  the  Chinese  when 
the  Bishop  suddenly  became  conscience-stricken.  "  I  tell 
you,  Chamberlin,"  he  said,  "  I  feel  ashamed  of  my- 
self for  having  asked  for  special  permission  to  go 
through  this  city.  It  seems  a  sacrilege  to  me."  I 
couldn't  very  well  help  smiling,  he  was  so  in  earnest 
about  it 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  129 

While  our  conduct  since  our  arrival  in  the  city  is  bit- 
terly condemned  by  the  missionaries  and  the  citizens  of 
other  nationalities,  I  think  as  Americans  we  should  all 
feel  very  proud,  and  we  may  with  justice  boast  that  our 
civilization  is  of  a  better  order  than  that  of  any  other 
nation.  We  are  condemned  by  the  missionaries  and  the 
citizens  because  we  have  been  lenient.  They  say, 
"  Chaffee  is  chicken-hearted.  Why  don't  he  kill  a  lot  of 
these  devils  and  teach  them  a  lesson?"  They  demand 
blood,  always  blood,  and  they  point  us  to  Germany  as  an 
example  of  what  should  be  done ! 

The  Germans  did  not  get  here  until  the  worst  of  the 
fighting  was  over,  and  they  have  been  trying  to  make  up 
for  loss  of  time  since.  Scarcely  a  day  passes  but  three  or 
four  Chinamen  are  shot  in  their  district,  and  sometimes 
the  number  reaches  fourteen  or  fifteen.  An  English 
officer  who  is  attached  to  the  staff  of  Count  Von  Wal- 
dersee  said  to  me  yesterday,  "  Why,  it's  so  bad  around 
these  headquarters  that  I  don't  dare  stick  my  head  out  of 
the  window  after  dark  for  fear  of  being  shot."  They  are 
shooting  all  the  time. 

Put  to  get  back  to  our  own  conduct  of  affairs.  Our 
poHcy  has  been  from  the  start  to  keep  the  peace,  to  clean 
up,  to  encourage  industry,  and  to  give  the  unfortunates 
an  opportunity  to  get  together  enough  to  keep  them  from 
starving  to  death  this  Winter.  The  first  thing  we  did 
was  to  issue  an  order  commanding  the  storekeepers  to 
open  their  stores.  If  they  didn't  do  it,  the  order  said, 
the  soldiers  would.  Business  must  be  resumed.  Pro- 
tection was  guaranteed.  The  Chinese  opened  up 
promptly.  The  news  spread  that  it  was  safe  to  live  in 
the  American  district.  The  Chinese  who  had  escaped 
killing  came  back  in  droves  and  the  district  became  over- 
crowded. It  it  jammed  full  of  people  to-day.  Though 
naturally  filthy,  they  are  forced  to  be  clean.  They  sweep 
the  streets.  Their  houses  are  inspected  and  they  must 
keep  them  clean,  too.  They  have  had  to  dig  sinks  and  do 
everything  else  that  the  laws  of  sanitation  demand. 
They  are  pleasant  and  respectful,  and  an  American  is  as 
safe  in  that  district  as  he  is  at  home.  It  is  tiresome  walk- 
ing through  the  streets  because  every  man,  woman,  and 


130  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

child  salutes  you,  and  politeness  demands  that  you  re- 
turn the  salute. 

The  contrast  in  the  German  District  is  striking.  There 
the  streets  are  deserted.  The  stores  are  all  closed.  Now 
and  then  you  see  a  Chinaman  skulking  around,  afraid  to 
say  his  soul  is  his  own.  If  a  shopkeeper  opens  his  shop, 
the  German  soldiers  rob  him.  If  he  shows  himself  on 
the  street,  he  is  commandeered  and  forced  to  do  coolie 
work,  and,  likely  as  not,  if  he  protests  he  is  shot  and  the 
official  report  is  that  he  was  a  Boxer. 

The  English  district  is  better  than  the  German,  but 
away  behind  our  own.  The  only  district  that  compares 
with  ours  is  that  of  the  Japs.  Like  ours  it  is  over- 
crowded, but  unlike  ours  it  reeks  with  filth.  The  Japs 
have  done  nothing  at  all  toward  keeping  it  clean  or  rather 
getting  it  clean. 

This  letter  is  getting  long,  and  I  fear  tiresome,  and, 
besides  that,  my  candle  is  sputtering  its  last  sputs,  so  I'll 
cut  it  short. 

Peking,  Monday,  November  5,  being  the  i8th  day, 
ninth  moon,  26th  year,  Kuang  Hsu,  H.  I.  M. 

Not  much  to  write  about  to-day,  except  that  it  was 
cold  and  windy  and  dusty  and  disagreeable.  Nobody 
who  has  not  been  in  Peking  on  a  dusty  day  can  realize 
what  a  dusty  day  means.  The  dust  is  so  thick  that  you 
can't  see  many  feet  in  front  of  your  face,  and  it  is  chok- 
ing. It  gets  so  bad  that,  in  order  to  breathe  in  comfort, 
you  have  to  tie  your  handkerchief  across  your  mouth  and 
nose,  so  that  you  can  sift  the  air  and  not  have  it  fly  into 
your  lungs  and  get  caked  there.  The  wind  that  came 
with  this  dust  was  cold  as  Greenland's  icy  mountains, 
and  it  cut  right  through  to  the  bone.  It  was  so  bad  that 
I  stayed  in  the  house  all  the  morning,  and  you  know  it 
must  have  been  pretty  bad  to  induce  me  to  do  that.  It 
improved  a  little  in  the  afternoon,  and  I  put  on  my  heavy 
sweater,  saddled  my  horse,  and  started  off  for  the  Lega- 
tion, which  is  a  mile  and  a  half  from  my  quarters. 

It  was  a  ride  straight  against  the  wind,  and  I  guess 
the  horse  didn't  like  it  any  better  than  I  did.    At  least. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  131 

he  danced  jigs  all  over  creation  all  the  way  there.  In 
spite  of  the  weather  the  Ministers  held  their  meeting 
and  they  came  to  an  agreement  on  one  point — that  was, 
to  stand  together  in  the  demand  for  the  punishment  of 
the  murderers  of  Baron  von  Kettler,  the  German  Minis- 
ter, who  was  killed  early  in  the  trouble.  That  wasn't 
much,  but  it's  a  mighty  good  sign  when  they  can  suc- 
ceed in  agreeing  on  anything,  and  it  is  very  likely  that 
what  I  told  you  yesterday  will  come  out  true.  Another 
week  may  see  the  first  meeting  with  the  Chinese  Com- 
missioners, and  when  they  begin  to  meet  with  them,  that 
is  the  beginning  of  the  end. 

I  wanted  to  send  a  cable  to-night  about  the  meeting  of 
the  Ministers,  but  when  I  went  to  the  telegraph  office  I 
found  the  wire  was  down  between  Tong  Ku  and  Taku, 
and  that  settled  the  matter  for  the  day.  I  will  try  to 
get  one  off  in  the  morning.  I  imagine  it  doesn't  make  a 
great  deal  of  difference  in  New  York  just  at  present. 
The  election  is  so  close  at  hand  that  nobody  will  miss  a 
cable  from  China.  It  is  still  cold  and  windy  and  un- 
comfortable to-night,  and  I'm  going  to  go  to  bed  to  get 
warm.  Fires  are  one  of  the  luxuries  out  here,  you  know, 
that  cannot  be  indulged  in  all  the  time.  This  is  one  of 
the  nights  when  we  are  shy  of  wood  and  hence  fireless. 
I'll  warm  up  over  the  candle  before  I  go  to  bed. 

Peking,  Tuesday,  November  6,  1900,  being  the  fif- 
teenth day  of  the  ninth  moon,  26th  year,  H.  I.  M. 
Kuang  Hsu. 

This  is  supposed  to  be  a  great  fete-day  in  China,  the 
fete  of  Chu  Hi,  the  most  eminent  of  the  later  Chinese 
philosophers,  whose  commentaries  on  the  Chinese  classics 
have  formed  for  centuries  the  recognized  standard  of 
excellency.  At  least,  that's  what  a  Chinaman  told  me, 
and  I  kept  a  sharp  look-out  all  day  for  the  fetes,  but  the 
only  ones  I  saw  were  spelled  with  two  "  e's "  in  the 
middle  and  they  went  in  pairs  and  were  worn  by  all  the 
Chinamen  in  Peking.  Those  twenty-three  bags  of  mail 
I  told  you  about  three  or  four  days  ago  got  in  to-day  and 
there  was  the  finest  sort  of  a  cussing-match.     It  turned 


132  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

out  not  to  be  letter  mail  at  all,  but  only  papers,  and  those 
all  of  one  kind — The  Chicago  Record,  which  sends  papers 
out  by  the  bagful. 

We  had  a  little  excitement  this  morning  in  the  shape  of 
a  report  that  the  Empress  Dowager  had  died,  but  we 
could  not  confirm  the  news,  and  when  I  went  to  see  old 
Li  Hung  Chang  he  said  that  he  had  not  heard  of  it.  As 
he  is  in  daily  communication  with  the  Emperor,  I  guess 
the  story  could  not  be  true.  I  don't  mind  saying  that  to 
die  would  be  the  most  popular  thing  the  Empress  could 
do,  even  if  she  is  the  Chief  Ornery  Member  of  the  Up- 
Against-Its.  I  expect  that  dying  will  be  a  very  popular 
pastime  among  the  Chinese  of  noble  birth  in  a  little  while. 
The  Ministers  insist  that  thirteen  of  the  royalty  shall 
shuffle  off  this  mortal  coil  because  they  had  a  hand  in  the 
Boxer  outrages.  You  know  they  have  a  habit  here, 
when  they  want  a  man  to  get  out  of  the  way  and  they 
prefer  not  to  cut  off  his  head,  of  saying  to  him,  "  Here's 
the  bottle  of  chloride  of  gold,"  and  he  takes  the  contents 
and  drops.  Then  the  Court  issues  a  long  decree,  extol- 
ling the  virtues  of  the  deceased  and  saying  how  sorry  they 
are  that  he  has  gone. 

On  the  way  to  Singan-fu,  where  the  Emperor  and  the 
Empress  are  now,  one  of  the  young  nobles  was  left 
behind.  The  other  day  he  showed  up  at  Singan-fu. 
"What,"  said  the  Dowager,  "are  you  alive  yet?" 
There  wasn't  anything  for  him  to  do  but  to  reach  for  the 
chloride  of  gold  bottle  and  go  out  and  die.  That's  what 
he  did.  You  see,  suicide  is  not  considered  a  disgrace- 
ful death  among  the  heathen,  and  they  really  don't 
mind  it. 

However,  to  take  tip  a  more  cheerful  subject,  every- 
thing is  promising  for  an  early  settlement  of  the  row, 
I  think.  Russia  is  acting  badly,  but  I  guess  she  will  be 
brought  around  all  right.  I  hope  so,  anyway,  and  as 
soon  as  she  is,  the  Ministers  will  be  ready  to  get  up  and 
present  their  note  to  China,  telling  the  Chinese  what  they 
must  do.  I  sent  off  a  cable  to-night,  but  I  suppose  it 
will  get  scant  courtesy  in  the  office,  for  it  will  reach  there 
at  the  busiest  hour  of  election  night,  in  all  probability, 
and  I  imagine  nobody  will  be  thinking  of  anything  but 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  133 

the  getting  in  of  the  returns.  I  hope  McKinley  Bill  will 
be  elected,  and  I  don't  believe  there  is  any  doubt  about  it, 
but  a  lot  of  people  here  are  scared. 

Hug  and  kiss  the  babies  for  me  and  tell  them  how 
much  I  want  this  trouble  to  be  over  so  that  I  can  get  back 
and  see  you  all. 

Peking,  Wednesday,  November  7,  1900,  being  the 
sixteenth  day  of  the  ninth  moon  of  the  26th  year 
of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

Another  day  without  much  to  say.  It  is  Election  Day 
in  New  York  and  in  the  rest  of  the  United  States,  and  the 
Americans  here  are  almost  as  much  excited  as  if  they 
were  at  home  with  their  coats  off,  taking  part  in  a  red- 
hot  election  themselves.  They  are  all  deeply  interested, 
for  it  means  a  great  deal  to  them.  Strange  as  it  may 
seem,  a  lot  of  them  have  some  doubt  of  the  outcome. 
They  have  a  regular  Bryan  fever.  I  have  done  my  best 
to  convince  them  that  Bryan  hasn't  as  much  show  of 
being  elected  as  I  have,  but  it  is  a  mighty  hard  work. 
They  are  an  unbelieving  crowd.  Even  Minister  Conger 
is  a  little  doubtful.  I  told  him  to-day  that  he  ought  to  be 
ashamed  of  himself,  but  he  still  said  that  he  had  seen 
"  certain-sure  things  "  go  wrong  before.  There  was  no 
question  about  it,  he  was  in  more  or  less  of  a  panic. 
Well,  wait  until  morning.  By  that  time  I  will  have  a 
dispatch  from  Mr.  Lord,  I  think,  telling  me  how  things 
have  gone,  and  then  I'll  go  around  with  a  chip  on  my 
shoulder,  saying  "  I  told  you  so."  I  hope  the  cable  com- 
pany is  good  to  me  and  lets  the  message  come  through, 
but  you  can't  always  sometimes  tell.  I  expect  to  be  a 
very  popular  man  in  the  morning  for  a  little  while,  at 
least.  I  think  I'll  hire  a  hall  and  charge  an  admission 
fee. 

Home  life  here,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  is  somewhat  upset 
now.  Reeves  and  myself  have  got  two  real  Chinamen, 
one  a  cook  and  the  other  a  boy,  to  keep  the  rooms  clean 
and  wait  on  the  table.  Neither  of  them  can  talk  English. 
The  boy's  name  is  Wo.  I  haven't  been  able  yet  to  make 
out  the  cook's  name.  If  ever  there  was  a  pair  of  worth- 
less devils  on  earth  these  are  the  ones.     However,  they 


134  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

are  the  best  we  have  been  able  to  pick  up  so  far,  and  w* 
shall  have  to  get  along  with  them  as  best  we  can  until 
we  can  better  ourselves.  You  see,  off  here  in  China 
the  servant-girl  question  is  quite  as  bothersome  as  it  is  at 
home,  only  here  there  are  no  servant  girls  at  all.  They 
are  all  serving  men.  Chinese  women  are  scarce  articles. 
I  told  you  in  other  letters  what  was  done  to  keep  down  the 
breed.  It  was  pretty  successful  in  doing  it,  I  think. 
You  see  thousands  of  Chinamen  on  the  street,  but  it's 
only  now  and  then  that  you  see  a  Chinese  woman.  I 
don't  believe  I've  seen  more  than  twenty  or  thirty,  all 
told,  since  I  came  to  Peking.  They  are  here,  but  they 
keep  in  hiding,  for  fear  of  the  soldiers,  I  guess. 

We  are  going  to  have  a  flag-raising  at  the  Temple  of 
Agriculture  to-morrow.  General  Chaffee  has  had  a  big 
flagstaff  put  up,  and  at  noon,  when  the  battery  guns  shoot 
to  tell  the  time  of  day,  Old  Glory  is  to  be  run  up,  and  the 
Ninth  Regiment  band  is  to  play  "  The  Star-Spangled 
Banner,"  while  all  the  troops  that  are  here  are  to  salute. 
It  will  be  quite  a  function.  The  Minister  and  his  family 
and  all  the  folks  at  the  Legation  have  been  invited  to 
see  it,  and  then  to  take  tiffin.  Mess  facilities  are  short 
and  R.  and  I,  I  suppose,  you  will  have  to  entertain  some 
of  them  at  our  little  mess.  We  shall  lay  ourselves  out  on 
the  food  proposition  and  try  to  beat  the  General.  I 
think  we  can  do  it. 

Peking,  Thursday,  November  8,  1900.  Being  the 
seventeenth  day  of  the  ninth  moon  of  the  26th 
year  of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

"  I  told  you  so."  I  got  Mr.  Lord's  message  this  morn- 
ing, telling  me  that  McKinley  had  been  re-elected  Presi- 
dent, and  my  friend  Ben  Odell,  Governor  of  New  York, 
by  an  overwhelming  majority,  and  that  Congress  was 
Republican.  It  was  glorious  news  from  every  stand- 
point, and  my  message  was  the  only  one  that  got 
through  from  New  York.  I  received  as  many  congratu- 
lations as  if  I  had  been  running  for  office  myself  and  had 
been  elected.  I  sent  the  message  to  General  Chaffee  with 
my  compliments,  and  then  to  Minister  Conger.  It  was 
posted  in  the  Legation  and  in  Headquarters.     I  tele- 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  135 

graphed  the  news  to  Tien  Tsin,  where  it  was  posted  as  a 
Sun  bulletin.  It  was  a  fine  ad.  for  The  Sun,  and  it  made 
me  very  solid  with  a  lot  of  people  that  I  wanted  to  be 
solid  with.  This  afternoon  I  got  a  note  from  Mr.  Con- 
ger, inviting  me  to  dine  with  the  IMinister  and  his  family 
to-morrow  evening.  Of  course  I'll  accept,  not  because  I 
want  a  dinner,  but  because  I  want  to  catch  the  Minister 
on  the  social  side  for  business  purposes. 

We  had  our  flag-raising  to-day,  and  it  was  a  big 
sTiccess.  Coming,  as  it  did,  on  the  news  of  the  re-elec- 
tion of  McKinley,  it  was  something  of  a  celebration  of 
that  event,  and  there  was  quite  an  enthusiastic  time.  We 
had  a  party  of  seven  or  eight  at  lunch  with  us,  and  I 
think  we  gave  them  a  better  feed  than  those  got  who  went 
to  the  General's  headquarters.  I  sent  no  cable  yesterday 
and  none  to-day  because  there  was  little  news  to  send, 
and,  besides  that,  I  knew  that  the  election  would  so 
crowd  things  that  there  would  be  no  room  in  the  papers 
for  news  from  China,  unless  it  was  of  the  Ai,  first-class 
order,  and  there  was  none  of  that  to  be  had. 

Peking,  Friday  night,  November  9,  being  the 
eighteenth  day  of  the  ninth  moon,  26th  year  of  the 
reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

I  have  just  returned  from  the  dinner  given  at  Mr. 
Conger's  home  and  it  is  nearly  midnight,  so  I  have  time 
for  only  a  few  lines  before  I  go  to  bed,  but  as  you  will  get 
this  letter  along  with  a  lot  of  others  and  as  the  others  no 
doubt  will  bore  you,  I  know  that  you  will  be  rather  glad 
than  sorry  that  I  haven't  time  to  write  a  longer  letter. 
The  dinner  was  a  more  formal  afifair  than  I  had  expected 
to  attend.  It  was  rather  in  honor  of  Mr.  W.  W.  Rock- 
hill,  who  came  out  here  just  about  the  same  time  I  did. 
At  that  time,  you  will  remember,  it  was  believed  that 
Minister  Conger  had  been  killed.  Mr.  Rockhill  brought 
with  him  credentials  as  IMinister,  to  be  used  if  it  should 
turn  out  that  the  Boxers  had  annihilated  the  Minister. 
Fortunately,  the  Ministers  were  safe,  and  Mr.  Rockhill 
was  out  of  a  job,  but  he  was  retained  by  the  Government 
because  of  his  wide  knowledge  of  Chinese  affairs,  and 
he  has  been  at  work  in  the  South  for  some  time.     He  got 


136  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

up  here  yesterday  in  the  wagon  that  took  General  Wilson 
to  Tien  Tsin. 

At  the  dinner  to-night  there  were  General  Chaffee, 
Major  Byron,  Colonel  Coolidge,  Captain  Dodd,  Lieu- 
tenant Connell,  besides  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Rockhill,  his  Secre- 
tary, Smith,  who  was  the  Consul  at  Canton,  Mr.  and  Mrs. 
Conger  and  Miss  Conger  and  Mr.  Conger's  niece,  a  Miss 
Pierce,  who  was  with  them  during  all  the  siege.  Mr. 
Cheshire,  the  official  Chinese  Secretary  of  the  Legation, 
was  also  one  of  the  guests.  The  dinner  itself  wasn't  any- 
thing extra,  but  the  evening  was  passed  very  pleasantly, 
and  I  got  together  a  lot  of  information  about  China  and 
Chinese  affairs  that  will  be  of  very  great  use,  so  that  my 
object  in  attending  the  dinner  was  attained.  Mrs.  Conger 
I  found  to  be  a  fine  old  lady,  one  of  the  motherly  sort,  who 
takes  an  interest  in  everything  and  everybody.  She  told 
me  that  I  must  make  just  as  much  use  of  her  home  as  it 
would  be  convenient  for  me  to  do,  so  I  guess  I  got  along 
very  well,  thank  you. 

The  Ministers  had  another  meeting  to-day  and  I 
learned  that  they  had  really  completed  their  demands 
and  a  committee  had  been  appointed  to  draw  them  up. 
They  will  now  be  telegraphed  to  the  Governments,  and 
if  approved  quickly,  there  is  no  reason  why  the  meeting 
with  the  Chinese  Commissioners  should  not  take  place  in 
a  very  short  time. 

Peking,    China,    November    lo   and    ii,    being   the 
nineteenth  and  the  twentieth  day  of  the  ninth  moon 
of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of  Kuang  Hsu,  H. 
I.  M. 
Yesterday,  Saturday,  was  the  day  I  had  set  apart  to 
send  to  you  and  our  little  ones  a  Christmas  greeting  and 
a  fervent  wish  that  the  year  to  come  might  be  the  hap- 
piest year  of  your  lives.     It  was  more  than  a  month 
before  Christmas,  but  there  was  no  hope  of  my  getting 
away  in  time  to  be  with  you  all  on  that  occasion,  and  as 
the  mails  are  so  uncertain  I  thought  that  to  reach  you  in 
time  to  have  it  a  real  Christmas  greeting  I  would  have  to 
send  early.     But  as  you  know,  man  proposes  and  God  dis- 
poses, and  while  I  had  proposed  that  Saturday,  Novem- 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  137 

ber  10,  should  be  the  day,  it  evidently  was  not  intended 
that  it  should  be.  Friday  night,  as  I  was  coming  home 
from  the  Minister's  house,  the  first  gust  of  a  wind-storm 
came  up.  The  wind  blew  furiously  after  I  got  to  my 
room,  and  all  day  yesterday  it  increased  in  volume.  It 
was  a  wintry  blast  that  sent  the  shivers  up  and  down 
one's  spine  and  made  you  sorry  you  were  alive.  My 
house  is,  or  was,  a  sort  of  a  summer  palace,  and  you  can 
see  daylight  through  it  whichever  way  you  look.  Cold? 
Gee  whiz !  Water  in  the  tea-kettle  on  the  stove  would 
freeze.  I  started  once  or  twice  to  send  those  Christmas 
greetings,  once  with  a  huge  army-blanket  wrapped 
around  me,  but  my  hands  were  so  cold  I  couldn't  hold  the 
pencil  and  I  had  to  give  it  up  and  go  to  bed  to  keep 
warm. 

The  wind  lasted  all  day  and  all  last  night,  but  it  died 
away  this  morning,  and  now  it  is  quiet — a  nice,  clear 
crisp  cold  that  braces  one  up  and  makes  him  feel  like 
living  again.  So  it  is  an  ideal  morning  for  Christmas 
greetings,  and  I  send  them  with  all  my  love  and  all  my 
heart.  May  your  Christmas  be  merry  and  your  New 
Year  be  happy.  Don't  let  my  absence  detract  one 
jot  from  your  happiness.  Remember  that  I  am  with 
you  all  in  spirit,  if  not  in  person,  and  on  Christmas  Day 
at  noon  I  shall  drink  a  bumper  to  your  health  and  happi- 
ness, and  to  the  health  and  happiness  of  the  old  folks 
and  of  G.  and  of  the  little  ones.  May  God  be  with 
you  all  and  make  you  happy.  There,  I  can't  wish  you 
any  better  than  that,  can  I  ?  and  if  I  should  be  dull  and 
blue,  off  here  away  from  you,  I  shall  be  happy  in  know- 
ing that  all  of  you  are  happy. 

I  have  sent  you  two  packages,  and  I  have  one  or 
two  more  to  send,  but  I  fear  they  won't  reach  you 
in  time  for  Christmas.  You  see  it  is  difficult  to  send 
things  from  out  here  because  of  the  customs  duty  in  the 
States.  Things  are  held  up  by  the  customs  officers  until 
they  get  time  to  assess  duties,  and  that  may  be  two  or 
three  months.  Then,  again,  this  place  is  not  a  good  one 
to  find  Christmas  presents  in.  When  people  are  hunting 
food  there  is  little  time  to  think  of  Christmas.  In  the 
two  packages  I  have  sent  there  are  some  gowns  and  some 


138  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

embroidery.  I  don't  suppose  they  are  appropriate  for 
Christmas  gifts,  but  they  are  the  best  the  old  man  could 
do,  so  take  it  with  the  Christmas  spirit.  Send  Mother  a 
piece.  I  think  there  is  enough  in  one  piece  for  a  dress, 
for  "  Miss  Chamberlin,"  the  pride  of  her  dad's  heart 
and  in  another  piece  for  her  sister,  who  is  no  less  the 
pride  of  her  dad's  heart  because  of  her  two  years'  jun- 
iority. Or  perhaps  one  piece  will  make  a  waist  for  each 
of  them.  I  don't  know  about  those  things.  Divide 
them  up  so  that  each  will  have  a  gift  from  Pop.  There 
is  also  a  little  enameled  paper  cutter  for  you  to  dispose  of. 
As  I  am  short  of  gifts  for  males,  I  think  that  Father 
might  like  that.  It  is  not  much,  but  it  is  a  remembrance 
and  it  comes  from  the  palace  of  Prince  Li  in  Peking. 

For  G.  I  have  a  bronze  bell  that  came  from  the 
Bell  Temple,  here,  and  is  admired  by  all  the  bronze 
cranks  who  have  seen  it.  The  chief  attraction  of  the 
Bell  Temple  is  a  mammoth  bell,  and  when  the  priests 
come  to  worship  the  great  god  Buddha  they  strike  this 
bell  hard.  That  wakes  up  the  spirits  and  they  listen  to 
the  prayers.  Besides  the  big  bell,  which  is  I  think  twenty 
feet  high,  there  are  numerous  other  bells  in  the  temple, 
and  this  bell  I  shall  send  in  the  next  dispatch  bag  is  one 
of  them.  I  can't  tell  what  particular  spirit  or  class  of 
spirits  it  was  supposed  to  wake  up,  but  if  she  takes  it  to 
Chicago  and  hangs  it  up  in  her  house  I  hope  it  will  never 
wake  up  any  but  good  spirits  and  that  it  will  always 
wake  them  in  time  for  dinner.  The  bronze  experts  say 
that  the  bell  was  made  in  the  time  of  the  Chien  Lung 
reign.  He  was  Emperor  of  China  from  1736  to  1796, 
so  the  bell  is  certainly  more  than  100  years  old.  For 
C.  I  have  a  piece  of  bronze,  an  incense  burner.  It  is 
from  the  Lama  Temple,  where  the  70-foot  high  wooden 
god  Buddha  has  been  sitting  for  centuries.  The  mark 
on  it  says  it  was  made  during  the  Da  Wing  dynasty, 
during  the  reign  of  Hsuan-teh ;  that  was  from  1426  to 
1436,  so  the  piece  is  nearly  500  years  old. 

As  I  said  before,  this  is  no  place  to  do  Christmas  shop- 
ping, so  nobody  need  expect  appropriate  gifts,  and  when 
it  comes  to  men  folks  I  am  clean  stumped.  I've  got  a 
Chinese  silver  ring  which  I  will  send  home  in  the  next 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  139 

batch  for  your  father.  It  is  not  valuable,  but  it  comes 
from  Peking.  I  have  also  a  piece  of  bronze  for  my 
father  and  a  couple  of  pieces  for  you,  but  I  may  not  send 
them  right  away,  because  I  can't  work  the  dispatch  bag 
too  often,  and  you  have  my  remembrance  in  the  em- 
broideries. The  dispatch  bag  is  sent  by  the  Minister  to 
Washington  and  is  unopened  by  customs  ofificials.  Then 
the  packages  are  shipped  on  by  the  State  department 
by  express.  You  see  it  is  a  matter  of  favor  entirely. 
And  now  we  come  to  the  young  masters,  Master  W.  and 
Master  C.  If  it  has  been  hard  to  find  appropriate  things 
for  men,  it  is  still  harder  to  find  anything  at  all  for  such 
young  men  as  they  are,  but  their  pop  has  found  a  piece  of 
fur  for  each,  out  of  which  their  mother  shall  have  made 
for  each  of  them  a  pair  of  fur  gloves  or  mitts,  or  maybe 
the  lining  for  a  coat.  Tell  them  for  papa  that  out  here 
in  China  there  is  no  Santa  Claus.  Santa  Claus  comes 
only  where  there  is  Christianity,  and  there  is  none  of  that 
here,  so  the  little  people  of  their  age  have  no  Santa  Claus, 
no  Christmas,  and  get  no  presents,  and  papa,  being  away 
off  here,  couldn't  find  Santa  Claus  and  so  couldn't  tell 
him  what  to  give  them.  But  he  has  sent  a  message 
across  the  ocean  to  Santa  Claus's  house  to  tell  him  not  to 
forget  them,  and  1  believe  that  with  mamma  to  manage 
things  he  won't  forget. 

Again  and  again  a  merry  Christmas  and  a  happy  New 
Year  to  you  all.     God  bless  you  and  keep  you. 

Peking,  Monday,  November  12,  being  the  twenty- 
first  day,  ninth  moon,  26th  year,  H.  I.  M.  Kuang 
Hsu. 

I  was  made  happy  again  to-day  by  the  receipt  of  three 
letters  from  you.  They  were  just  what  I  needed  to 
warm  me  up  this  blithering  weather.  The  cold  keeps 
up  here  like  a  good  fellow.  There  have  been  three  or 
four  days  of  freezing,  now,  without  any  let  up,  and  I 
rather  look  for  a  change  for  the  better  pretty  soon.  I 
think  by  reading  over  the  letters  once  or  twice  I'll  be 
able  to  keep  warm.  Anyway,  I'll  be  a  heap  sight  warmer 
than  I  have  been  during  the  cold  snap. 

Those  blooming  Ministers  met  again  to-day  and  "  re- 


140  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

ported  progress."  I  had  hoped  that  they  would  finish  up 
their  work  and  be  able  to  send  their  note  to  Li  Hung 
Chang  and  Prince  Ching  and  so  bring  about  the  begin- 
ning of  the  end,  but  they  didn't.  Mr.  Conger  told  me, 
however,  that  they  had  practically  completed  the  pre- 
amble of  their  demand,  and  that  means  a  good  deal. 
They  have  another  meeting  in  the  morning,  which  is 
another  good  sign.  When  they  get  to  holding  daily 
meetings  it  shows  that  they  are  very  near  an  agreement 
on  everything.  I  learned  to-day,  too,  that  a  good  deal 
of  pressure  was  being  brought  to  bear  on  them  by  their 
home  business  men,  who  want  a  chance  to  resume  their 
business  in  China.  Of  course,  since  the  trouble  every- 
thing in  China  in  the  way  of  business  has  gone  com- 
pletely to  pot,  and  the  business  world  is  losing  profits  and 
getting  tired  of  waiting.  I  am  with  them,  I  can  tell  you, 
body  and  soul,  and  they  can't  get  through  with  it  any 
too  quickly  for  me. 

There  isn't  much  to  tell  you  outside  of  this  to-day.  I 
hope  that  you  got  the  bundles  in  time  for  Christmas,  and 
that  the  embroidery  pleased  you.  It  was  the  best  I  could 
do  in  the  Christmas  line  out  here.  You  see  there  are  not 
any  shops  like  Abraham  &  Strauss  and  Loeser's  and  the 
others.  The  tallest  building  in  Peking,  outside  the 
Legations,  is  one  story  high,  and  not  all  of  the  Lega- 
tions have  two  stories.  Most  of  the  native  buildings  are 
the  size  of  a  good-sized  American  chicken-coop,  and  they 
are  fitted  up  in  about  the  same  order  of  palatial  grandeur. 
The  people  eat  and  sleep  in  them  as  well  as  keep  store, 
so  you  can  imagine  what  a  fine  thing  it  is  to  go  shopping. 
The  best  places  to  buy  are  on  the  streets,  as  I  have  already 
told  you. 

You  tell  that  young  man,  W.,  Jr.,  that  if  I  hear  any 
more  about  his  not  going  to  school  I  will  send  one  of 
the  Mahatmas  from  the  Desert  of  Gobi,  to  Brooklyn  to 
look  after  him.  The  Desert  of  Gobi  isn't  very  far  from 
Peking  and  these  Mahatmas  are  wonderful  creatures. 
They  can  travel  from  China  to  Brooklyn  in  one  night. 
H  you  don't  believe  it,  you  ask  some  of  the  Theosophists 
in  the  States  about  it.  Well,  they  just  look  out  for  little 
boys  who  don't  go  to  school,  like  the  goblins  that  carried 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  141 

off  Jimmy  in  "  Little  Orphant  Annie."  I  don't  know 
but  what  goblins  and  Mahatmas  are  just  the  same  thing. 
Anyway,  I  am  quite  sure  they  belong  to  the  same  family, 
and  their  headquarters  are  away  out  in  the  Desert  of 
Gobi.  They  don't  think  anything  of  sneaking  off  little 
boys  who  don't  go  to  school.  I  don't  know  what  they 
do  with  the  boys  when  they  get  them  out  to  the  Desert  of 
Gobi,  but  it  is  certainly  something  awful,  so  he  had  better 
look  out.  It  won't  ever  do  for  him  to  tease  his  mamma 
while  his  papa  is  away  and  is  so  handy  to  the  Mahatmas 
and  the  Goblins  and  the  Desert  of  Gobi. 

Peking,  November  13,  1900,  being  the  twenty-second 
day  of  the  ninth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the 
reign  of  Kuang  Hsu. 

Here  is  another  day  when  I  haven't  much  to  say. 
Maybe  it  is  because  I  have  been  writing  all  the  evening 
and  the  candles  are  burning  low  and  I  am  tired.  But  I 
will  give  you  the  record  of  the  day  at  any  rate,  though 
even  that,  I  fear,  has  so  much  of  sameness  about  it  that 
it  ceases  to  be  interesting  to  you.  I  went  to  the  Min- 
ister's in  the  morning.  I  do  that  every  day.  After  he 
got  back  from  the  meeting  I  had  a  talk  with  him  and  he 
had  mighty  little  to  tell  that  was  interesting.  But  when 
I  came  back  to  lunch  I  sat  down  and  wrote  a  cable  out  of 
it.  I  went  uptown  again  in  the  afternoon,  this  time  in 
a  'ricksha,  and  on  the  way  I  spotted  two  pieces  of  fine  old 
bronze.  They  were  incense-burners  and  they  looked  so 
pretty  that  I  bought  them.  They'll  make  fine  mantel 
decorations.  That  is  about  the  end  of  the  day.  When 
I  came  back  home  I  started  in  writing  and  I've  been  at  it 
ever  since,  with  a  rest  for  dinner  only. 

There  are  big  doings  here  in  the  camp  to-night.  Up 
to  this  time  our  soldiers  have  had  a  great  deal  of  liberty, 
and  naturally  they  have  abused  it.  As  a  result  there  are 
more  than  a  hundred  men  in  the  hospital.  That  is  alto- 
gether out  of  proportion  to  the  total  number  of  soldiers 
we  have  here,  and  General  Chaffee  made  up  his  mind  to 
cut  off  the  liberty.  To-day  he  issued  orders  that  no  man 
should  leave  the  camp  after  6  o'clock  and  at  that  hour 
he  put  a  chain  guard  around  the  wall  of  the  Temple  of 


142  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

Agriculture,  with  orders  to  let  nobody  pass.  Then  he 
ordered  that  at  8  o'clock,  lo  o'clock,  and  midnight  the 
roll  should  be  called  to  make  sure  that  every  man  was 
present  and  none  had  gone  out.  When  the  soldiers 
heard  of  it  they  were  mad,  and  they  evidently  made  up 
their  minds  to  get  square,  for  all  the  evening  they  have 
been  singing  songs  and  yelling  and  cutting  up.  I  am 
waiting  with  considerable  interest  to  see  what  General 
Chaffee  will  do  about  it  in  the  morning.  If  he  is  the  man 
I  take  him  to  be  he  is  at  present  lying  awake  in  bed  con- 
cocting some  plan  to  make  them  sorry,  and  I  think  he'll 
have  it  hatched  out  before  morning.  I'll  tell  you  what 
happens  to-morrow. 

Peking,  Wednesday,  November  14,  1900.  Being  the 
twenty-third  day  of  the  ninth  moon  of  the  26th 
year  of  the  reign  of  Kuang  Hsu,  H.  I.  M. 

This  has  been  another  one  of  those  days  that  I  have 
told  you  about,  when  the  wind  blows  pretty  nearly  forty 
miles  an  hour  and  the  dust  is  thicker  than  molasses  in  the 
the  Winter-time.  Our  house  here  has  been  a  few  de- 
grees colder  than  a  barn,  and  about  the  only  warm  spot 
was  in  bed,  but  of  course  I  could  not  stay  there.  I  had 
to  be  up  and  about.  Say  what  you  please  about  the 
weather,  however,  it  is  good  and  healthy.  The  climate  is 
dry.  I  haven't  had  as  much  as  a  cold  since  I  came  here, 
nor  have  I  worn  an  overcoat  yet.  That's  pretty  good, 
isn't  it? 

I  put  in  practically  all  of  to-day  writing  Sunday  stuflf 
for  The  Sun  and  I  finished  one  story  that  I  guess  will  take 
at  least  a  page.  It  is  made  up  almost  wholly  of  the  edicts 
that  were  issued  just  before  and  just  after  the  Dowager 
Empress'  coup  d'etat.  If  you  don't  know  just  what 
that  was,  you  will  remember  having  heard  about  it  while 
I  was  away  in  Cuba  in  1898.  You  know  she  bounced 
the  Emperor  and  took  the  throne  herself.  She  meant  to 
kill  him,  but  she  did  not  have  the  nerve  to  do  that.  The 
reason  for  it  all  was  that  the  Emperor  had  made  up  his 
mind  that  China  had  to  reform,  if  she  wanted  to  avoid 
being  grabbed  up  by  the  great  powers  of  the  world,  and 
so  he  started  out  on  a  wild  reform  rampage.     He  was 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  143 

going  to  change  everything,  and,  by  an  instantaneous 
introduction  of  Western  ways,  bring  his  Empire  up  to  a 
standard  with  the  great  powers.  His  ideas  were  good, 
but  he  was  a  Httle  precipitate  about  putting  them  in  opera- 
tion, and  that  got  the  hide-bound  old  idiots  who  don't  do 
much  else  but  worship  their  ancestors  and  job  their  fel- 
low men  all  down  on  him.  If  he  had  had  a  little  more 
time  he  would  have  been  all  right,  but  he  didn't  have  it, 
and  when  he  came  to  lock  horns  with  the  Dowager  she 
was  too  much  for  him  and  beat  him  out.  Then  she  set  to 
work  to  undo  all  that  he  had  done,  and  so  thorough  was 
she  in  that  job  that  the  story  of  it,  taken  from  the  edicts 
themselves,  struck  me  as  a  mighty  good  thing,  so  I  got 
it  up.  I've  a  lot  more  stuff  to  get  up  to-morrow  and  the 
mail  leaves  to-morrow  night,  so  I  guess  I'll  have  my 
hands  full. 

This  writing  is  horrible  to-night,  isn't  it?  I've  writ- 
ten so  much  to-day  that  my  fingers  are  tired  and  cramped, 
and  I  can't  make  it  any  plainer.  It  occurs  to  me,  how- 
ever, that  I  haven't  been  telling  you  anything  at  all  lately 
about  the  people  I'm  amongst.  I  don't  mean  the  soldiers, 
but  the  Chinese,  and  I  guess  I'll  have  to  start  in  again  if 
you  are  interested  in  them,  as  I  am  coming  to  be. 

I  noticed  to-day  that,  inside  of  every  gate  I  passed,  out 
on  the  grounds  of  the  Temple  of  Agriculture,  there  is  a 
big  masonry  screen.  This  screen  is  a  wall  higher  than 
the  gate  itself  and  is  built  just  inside  and  about  two  feet 
away.  To  get  inside  a  gate  you  have  to  turn  an  acute 
angle,  either  to  the  right  or  left.  Of  course  I  had  seen 
this  a  great  many  times,  but  I  had  not  noticed  it  partic- 
ularly before.  When  I  did  notice  it,  I  recalled  that  the 
entrances  to  all  Chinese  yards  were  built  in  the  same  way, 
and  I  stopped  a  Chinaman  who  could  talk  a  little  English, 
near  one  of  the  gates,  and  said,  "  What's  that  thing  for?  " 

He  looked  at  me  in  surprise  and  said,  "  Why,  that's  to 
keep  the  evil  spirits  out." 

I  looked  at  him  and  said,  "  What  a  fool  idea.  How 
will  that  keep  them  out  ?  Can't  they  get  in  there  ?  "  and 
then  I  pointed  at  the  openings  on  each  side. 

"  No  can  go,"  said  he.  "  Bad  spirits  always  travel 
in  a  straight  line.     They  try  come  in  they  bump  wall." 


144  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

I  said  to  him,  "  That's  idiotic.  How  do  you  know  that 
bad  spirits  can  travel  only  in  a  straight  line  ?  " 

"  Don't  they  travel  in  a  straight  line?  "  he  asked  inno- 
cently.    "  How  you  know  they  don't  ?  " 

Needless  to  say,  that  ended  the  argument  with  me. 
Maybe  they  do  travel  in  a  straight  line.  But  I  could  tell 
him  one  thing.  Even  if  they  do,  they  have  many  crooked 
ways.  The  Chinaman  is  very  funny  with  his  good  spirit  and 
his  bad  spirit.  You  know,  when  one  of  them  gets  sick 
and  sends  for  a  native  doctor,  the  doctor,  nine  times  out 
of  ten,  decides  that  the  man  is  afflicted  with  an  evil  spirit, 
so  the  thing  to  do  is  to  cut  a  hole  in  the  man  to  let  the 
evil  spirit  out.  H  the  patient  has  a  stomach  ache,  the 
doctor  cuts  a  little  hole  in  his  stomach.  If  he  has  a 
headache,  the  doctor  will  apply  hot  mustard  plasters  to 
the  feet  to  draw  the  spirit  down  and  then  will  cut  a  few 
holes  on  the  way  to  let  the  spirit  out  as  he  travels  feet- 
ward.  I  tell  you  they  are  great  people — the  doctors,  I 
mean.  If  the  victim  gets  well,  then  the  spirit  got  out  of 
one  of  the  holes.  If  he  doesn't  get  well,  then  the  hole 
was  cut  in  the  wrong  place,  or  else  it  wasn't  big  enough 
for  the  spirit  to  get  out.  Whichever  it  may  be,  of  course, 
doesn't  make  any  particular  difference  to  the  victim.  He 
is  in  a  box,  awaiting  the  auspicious  time  I  told  you  about 
in  one  of  my  letters  from  Shanghai. 

I  haven't  sent  off  any  cable  to-day,  and  I  don't  think  I 
shall  to-morrow.  Nothing  is  happening  worth  cabling, 
and  nothing  can  happen  until  the  Ministers  meet  again 
Monday,  so  I  guess  the  cables  never  will  be  missed. 

Tell  that  young  man  W.  that  I  had  a  talk  about 
him  with  the  Mahatmas  from  the  Desert  of  Gobi,  but  I'm 
not  going  to  send  any  of  them  on  until  I  get  further  let- 
ters, telling  me  they  are  needed.  The  Mahatmas  told  me 
that  when  they  got  boys  of  his  size  out  there  in  the 
Desert  of  Gobi  they  set  them  to  work  shoveling  sand  into 
wind-storms.  They  have  to  shovel  three  days  at  a  time 
without  resting,  day  or  night,  for  even  a  moment,  or  for 
a  drink  of  water.  If  they  stop  shoveling,  the  sand  just 
bums  them  up.  Well,  give  him  a  hug  and  a  kiss  for  me, 
and  tell  him  how  much  I  should  hate  to  have  to  send  the 
Mahatmas  after  him, 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  146 

Peking,  Thursday,  November  15,  26th  year,  H.  I.  M. 
Kuang  Hsu,  ninth  month,   twenty-fourth  day. 

I  have  finished  up  that  batch  of  mail  stuff  I  told  you 
about  in  my  letter  yesterday.  I  have  it  posted  and  there 
is  a  load  off  my  mind.  You  can  imagine  how  much 
there  was  of  it  when  I  tell  you  that  the  package  I  sent  to 
New  York  cost  $1.48  postage  and  the  one  I  sent  to  Lon- 
don cost  $1.35.  I  send  a  duplicate  of  most  of  my  stuff  to 
the  Laffan  Bureau  in  London,  which  sends  it  out  to  London 
papers,  but  whether  they  use  it  or  not  I  do  not  know. 
They  probably  don't,  for  the  reason  that  it  gets  there 
too  late,  some  days  after  it  is  printed  in  The  Sun,  I  tjiink. 
But  H.  R.  told  me  to  send  it,  so  I  let  it  go  anyway. 

I  did  not  get  to  the  Legation  at  all,  to-day,  and  I  wasn't 
there  yesterday.  I  couldn't  finish  up  the  mail  stuff  in 
time  and  do  anything  else,  so  I  just  took  chances  on  the 
news.  I  don't  believe  there  was  anything  worth  while, 
anyway.  The  weather  is  a  little  better  to-day  than  it  was 
yesterday.  I  guess  the  Mahatmas  out  in  Gobi  ran  short 
of  small  boys  to  shovel  dust  into  the  wind,  so  there  wasn't 
anywhere  near  as  much  dust  in  the  air  as  there  has  been. 
But  it  was  snappy  cold. 

I  did  hear  one  piece  of  good  news  to-day.  It  was  from 
the  camp  of  Count  von  Waldersee.  He  said  that  the 
railroad  would  be  completed  and  open  to  the  public  by 
December  15.  I  haven't  the  remotest  idea  whether  he 
tells  the  truth  or  not,  and  I  don't  think  he  has  himself. 
But  it  is  good  news  if  it  is  true.  The  railroad  goes  from 
here  to  Tien  Tsin,  and  once  it  is  in  operation  it  will  be 
possible  to  get  out  of  this  blooming  country  without 
taking  seven  or  eight  days  to  do  it.  The  train  used  to 
make  the  run  from  here  to  Tien  Tsin  in  four  hours,  and 
there  is  no  reason  why  they  should  not  do  it  again.  I  am 
a  little  skeptical,  however,  about  anything  that  the  Ger- 
mans have  anything  to  do  with.  A  more  worthless  lot  of 
creatures  I  don't  think  I  ever  came  across,  and  they  have 
been  talking  about  having  the  railroad  completed  every 
week  for  Heaven  only  knows  how  long.  This  news  to- 
day, however,  comes  from  the  No.  i  man,  as  we  say  here 
in  China,  and  it  may  be  more  better,  (another  Chinese 
expression) . 


146  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

One  of  the  stories  I  wrote  and  sent  off  to-day  was  a 
directory  of  the  missionaries.  You  will  notice,  when  you 
read  it,  that  they  all  live  in  palaces,  and  in  this  connec- 
tion it  may  interest  you  to  know  that  the  only  member  of 
the  Royal  Family  now  in  Peking,  Prince  Su,  is  living  in 
one  room,  with  a  table  and  two  chairs  to  keep  him  com- 
pany and  mighty  little  to  put  on  the  table.  Further,  he 
had  a  palace  before  the  trouble  here,  and  at  just  the  right 
moment  he  gave  it  up  to  the  native  Christians  and  they 
occupied  it  and  fortified  it  and  then  their  lives  were  saved. 
But,  being  a  Chinaman,  he  could  not,  of  course,  go  out 
and  grab  a  palace  to  replace  the  one  he  had  lost,  so  he  is 
having  a  tough  time  of  it. 

I  sent  my  horse  down  to-day  to  be  shod  and  the  black- 
smiths were  Chinamen.  Of  course  they  had  to  shoe  him 
Chinese  style  and  the  man  who  took  him  described  it  to 
me.  In  the  first  place,  the  horse  objected  to  being  shod, 
and  the  first  Chinaman  who  came  within  reach  got 
both  his  hind  heels  in  the  pit  of  his  stomach — I  mean 
the  horse's  heels  and  the  Chinaman's  stomach,  of  course 
— and  he  went  flying  out  in  the  street — the  Chinaman, 
not  t|ie  horse.  In  front  of  the  blacksmith  shops  here 
there  are  regular  frameworks.  The  horse  was  led  to  this 
frame  and  a  big  board  was  placed  under  his  belly.  Then 
ropes  were  drawn  around  his  feet  and  each  was  strapped 
to  the  frame.  Tlien  a  lot  of  Chinese  got  hold  of  a  rope 
and  the  pony  was  drawn  up  in  the  air.  All  his  legs 
being  tied,  he  couldn't  kick,  and  his  head  being  tied,  he 
couldn't  bite.  While  he  was  held  up  that  way  the  shoes 
were  put  on  him.  Then  he  was  let  down  and  was  as 
docile  as  a  kitten,  but  he  kept  watch  out  of  one  corner  of 
his  eye  to  catch  somebody  in  reach  of  the  business  end 
of  his  heels  again.  Fortunately  he  didn't  get  anotjier. 
He  nearly  killed  the  first  one. 

Peking,  Friday,  November  i6,  being  the  twenty-fifth 

day  of  the  ninth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the 

reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu,  Son  of  a  Gun,  etc. 

Here  is  another  week  almost  gone,  and  it  is  hard_  to 

realize  even  that  it  has  commenced.     I  tell  you  time  flies, 

out  here  in  .China,  the  same  as  everywhere  else.    I  re- 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  147 

sumed  my  hunt  for  news  to-day  and  spent  a  large  part  of 
the  day  up  at  the  Legation,  but  the  picking  was  mighty 
small  and  when  I  looked  over  the  batch  I  made  up  my 
mind  that  it  was  not  worth  sending  at  the  high  cable 
rates  charged,  so  I  let  it  all  go,  and  I  guess  I  won't  send 
any  cable  now  until  Sunday.  I  have  hopes  that  by  that 
time  something  will  turn  up  that  will  be  worth  while. 

While  I  was  at  the  Legation  this  afternoon  Li  Hung 
Chang  called.  He  came  in  a  green  sedan  chair  with  a 
white  topknot  on  it  to  indicate  that  he  was  a  No.  i  top- 
side Chinaman.  Of  course  he  was  not  accompanied  by 
an  army  or  anything  like  that.  Chinese  soldiers  are  not 
allowed  in  Peking.  He  was  carried  into  the  yard,  and 
then  he  got  out  of  the  chair  and  went  into  Mr.  Conger's 
office.  After  that  he  went  over  to  the  Minister's  house 
to  see  the  ladies.  He  is  a  very  old  man,  now,  and  he  has 
to  have  a  man  on  each  side  of  him  when  he  walks. 

I  couldn't  but  laugh  at  a  story  Mr.  Conger  told  me 
about  Li  some  time  ago.  There  had  been  a  very  dry 
season  in  China,  and  it  happened  that  there  was  a  very 
dry  season  in  America  at  the  same  time.  Li  was  calling 
on  Mr.  Conger,  and  they  got  to  talking  about  the  weather. 
Mr.  Conger  said,  "  Yes,  it's  very  dry  now  in  my  country. 
Only  the  other  day  I  was  reading  in  one  of  our  home 
papers  that  the  people  were  praying  for  rain." 

"  Do  your  people  pray  to  Heaven  for  rain,  too?  "  asked 
Li,  evidently  surprised. 

"  Ah  yes,"  said  Mr.  Conger,  "  they  pray  for  rain  very 
often." 

"  And  does  it  come  when  they  pray  for  it  ?  " 

"  Yes,  sometimes  it  comes,  but  sometimes  the  prayer 
is  not  answered,"  said  Mr.  Conger. 

"All  the  same  as  Chinese  Joss,  hey?"  said  Li  with  a 
chuckle,  and  that  floored  the  Minister. 

Li  Hung  Chang's  sense  of  humor  is  immense,  but  very 
often  he  oversteps  the  bounds.  To-day  he  joshed  the 
Congers  about  the  siege,  and  asked  Mrs.  Conger  if  she 
had  recovered  from  the  effects  of  it  yet.  Then  in  that 
joy  that  damphoolishness  is  the  father  of,  he  wanted  to 
know  how  they  liked  horseflesh,  anyway.  That,  I  think' 
you  will  admit,  was  rubbing  it  in  a  bit.     You  know  that 


148  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

durinj^:  the  siege  the  folks  were  all  reduced  to  horse-meat 
and  the  Congers  had  to  kill  and  eat  all  their  ponies.  It 
isn't  a  very  pleasant  thing  to  recall,  particularly  when  the 
ponies  were  pets,  as  those  that  were  eaten  were. 

By  the  way,  I  haven't  moved  yet,  and  I  don't  know  now 
whether  I  will  have  to  do  so  or  not.  General  Chaffee 
has  moved  over  to  the  compound  in  the  Temple  of  Agri- 
culture, and  now  he  is  my  next  door  neighbor.  I  have 
an  idea  that  he  will  let  Reeves  and  me  stay  where  we  are. 
If  he  does,  we  shall  be  more  comfortable  than  we 
would  anywhere  else  about  here,  so  I  certainly  hope 
he  does. 

Well,  I'll  say  good-night  again.  My  letters  have  been 
a  little  shorter,  lately,  than  they  were  a  while  ago.  That 
is  because  I  have  been  doing  so  much  other  work  that 
my  fingers  get  tired  and  I  don't  feel  like  writing  long 
lettters.  Then,  again,  Peking  is  a  pretty  dead  place, 
and  it  is  so  far  off  that  all  the  news  I  can  send  is  very 
old  and  stale  before  it  reaches  you. 

Peking,  Ninth  moon,  twenty-sixth  day,  26th  year, 
H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu,  the  same  being  Saturday, 
November  17,  1900. 
Not  much  news  to-day.  I  have  been  hustling  all  day 
to  get  good  matter  for  a  cable  to-morrow.  That  will  be 
in  Monday's  papers.  I've  quite  a  good  deal,  but  it  isn't 
in  the  way  of  news.  It's  mostly  "think  stuff."  It's 
a  fine  thing  to  be  able  to  think  thoughts  and  make  the 
other  fellow  pay  a  dollar  or  two  a  word  to  get  them  to 
him,  isn't  it?  That's  the  case  here,  all  the  same.  I  met 
my  rival  to-day,  and  he  was  'way  down  in  the  mouth — the 
Associated  Press  man,  I  mean.  He  had  a  telegram  from 
his  office  saying,  "  You  are  being  beaten  every  day  on 
good  news."  He  didn't  sav  anything  about  The  Sun,  but, 
as  The  Sun  is  the  only  rival  that  he  has.  I  guess  I  must  be 
the  one  who  is  beating  him.  Of  course  I  don't  get  the 
papers  out  here,  and  I  don't  know  what  we  are  printing 
or  what  the  opposition  is  printing,  and,  with  the  exception 
of  two  telegrams,  I  haven't  heard  from  the  office  about 
things.  I  hope  I'm  scoring  a  hit  now  and  then,  any- 
way. 


ORDERED   TO   CHINA  149 

I  told  you  yesterday  about  Li  Hung  Chang's  visit 
to  the  Legation,  I  heard  too  that  it  was  something  of  a 
pumping  excursion.  The  Dowager  and  the  Emperor 
had  gotten  out  another  edict,  punishing  the  officials  who 
were  responsible  for  the  Boxer  troubles,  and  Li  wanted  to 
know  if  it  wasn't  a  good  thing  and  a  step  in  the  right  di- 
rection. The  demand  that  the  Ministers  are  going  to  make 
is  that  all  these  officials  must  be  beheaded.  Mr.  Conger 
told  Li  that  banishment,  such  as  the  edict  provided  for, 
was  totally  inadequate.  Li  wanted  to  know,  then,  if  Mr. 
Conger  would  not  use  his  influence  with  the  other  Minis- 
ters to  have  them  let  up  a  little  on  the  officials,  and  Mr. 
Conger  replied  that  it  would  be  necessary,  first,  to  have 
somebody  use  his  influence  to  have  him — Mr.  Conger — 
let  up.  So  the  old  fellow  did  not  get  much  satis- 
faction. 

By  the  way,  I  heard  a  good  story  to-day  on  Miss 
Conger  that  ought  to  interest  you.  She  was  a  chronic 
nervous  woman.  She  couldn't  walk,  and  she  couldn't  do 
anything.  She  had  nervous  spells  and  all  that,  and  last 
Winter,  her  father  told  me,  she  was  in  such  poor 
health  that  he  sent  her  to  California,  almost  despairing 
of  ever  seeing  her  again.  She  got  no  better  in  Cali- 
fornia, and  returned  to  Peking  on  a  bed,  as  she  had  gone. 
Her  doctor's  final  instructions  were  to  be  extremely  care- 
ful of  her  diet,  and  to  be  sure  to  avoid  excitement.  Well, 
about  a  month  after  she  got  back  she  was  besieged,  along 
with  the  other  people  in  the  Legation.  She  was  reduced 
to  a  diet  of  horse  meat  and  other  indigestible  food,  and  as 
for  excitement,  maybe  you  think  it  wasn't  exciting  to  have 
rifle  bullets  whistling  about  you  every  minute,  and  occa- 
sionally a  shell  exploding  in  the  house  you  were  in  !  They 
tell  me  here  that  she  was  one  of  the  nerviest  people  in  the 
whole  siege.  She  spent  l>er  time  going  about  nursing  the 
sick  and  wounded,  or  cutting  up  curtains  and  carpets  and 
extra  clothing  to  make  sand-bags  to  strengthen  the  forti- 
fications. She  hasn't  been  sick  a  day  since  the  siege,  and 
her  father  says  she  never  was  in  better  health 
in  her  life  than  she  has  been  since  then.  She  isn't  nervous 
any  more  and  goes  about  with  the  liveliest.  Now,  what 
do  you  think  of  that  ? 


160  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

Peking^  Sunday,  November  i8,  1900,  or  the  twenty- 
seventh  day  of  the  ninth  month  of  the  26th  year 
of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

I  gathered  up  energy  and  facts  enough  to-day  to  send 
to  The  Sun  that  long  cable  which  you  read  "  From  a  Staff 
Correspondent  "  about  a  month  ago.  (It  will  be  about  a 
month  ago  when  you  get  this.)  This  certainly  has  been  a 
beautiful  day  in  Peking.  The  sun  came  out  warm  and  fine 
in  the  morning,  and  it  was  beautiful  and  clear  again.  For 
four  or  five  hours  nobody  would  ever  have  thought  that 
Peking  was  cold,  desolate,  and  cheerless.  It  was  the  sort 
of  weather  that  makes  you  feel  young  again — so  fine,  in 
fact,  that  I  have  walked  the  two  miles  from  the  Temple 
of  Agriculture  to  the  American  Legation,  and  the  two 
miles  back  again,  rather  than  saddle  up  the  horse  and 
ride.  As  I  have  told  you  before,  Sunday  is  just  like 
every  other  day  in  China,  and  to-day  the  streets  were 
packed  with  Chinamen,  most  of  them  good-natured  fel- 
lows who,  when  I  passed,  would  stand  at  attention  and 
salute. 

While  I  was  at  the  Legation  I  dropped  in  to  see  Sir 
Robert  Hart,  the  head  of  the  Imperial  Customs  service — 
"  the  I.  C."  they  call  him  here.  We  got  to  talking  about 
the  possibility  of  a  dividing  up  of  China  by  the  powers 
of  the  world.  I  asked  him  what  he  thought  about  the 
possibilities  of  such  an  outcome  of  the  present  trouble.  He 
said :  "  My  son,  I  have  been  in  China  forty-seven  years, 
and  there  has  not  been  a  year  since  I  came  here  that  they 
haven't  talked  about  partitioning  the  country.  Now  the 
religion  of  the  Chinaman  is  the  worship  of  his  ancestors. 
No  matter  what  his  ideas  may  be  on  other  religious  topics, 
he  worships  his  ancestors.  If  I  remember  my  Bible  right, 
it  says,  '  Honor  thy  father  and  thy  mother,  that  thy  days 
may  be  long  in  the  land  which  the  Lord  thy  God  giveth 
thee,'  and  if  I  read  my  history  right,  it  says  that  China 
has  existed  longer  than  any  other  empire  on  the  face  of  the 
globe.  It  does  look  as  if  that  Bible  promise  were  being 
fulfilled  for  the  heathen,  doesn't  it?  The  Chinamen  are 
still  worshiping  their  ancestors,  and  I  guess  maybe  we 
had  better  not  put  any  too  much  stock  in  this  talk  of 
partitioning  China."     And  I  guess  maybe  he  is  right. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  161 

There  is  a  new  influence  at  work  on  the  Ministers  to 
induce  them  to  hurry  up  the  negotiations,  and  I  certainly 
hope  it  will  be  effective,  and  let  me  get  out  of  here  before 
the  winter  really  sets  in  and  the  river  freezes  up.  The 
merchants  all  over  the  world  who  are  interested  in  the 
trade  of  China  are  complaining  bitterly  because  their  trade 
has  gone  all  to  pieces.  They  haven't  been  able  to  sell  any- 
thing and  the  result  is  that  some  of  them  are  on  the  verge 
of  bankruptcy.  While  the  ministers  have  been  spending 
practically  all  their  time  talking  about  their  own  safety 
and  their  own  future,  and  the  future  treatment  of  the 
missionaries,  business  has  all  been  going  to  pot,  and  things 
are  in  just  about  as  bad  a  condition  as  they  well  can  be. 
Of  course  the  merchants  are  complaining  to  their  govern- 
ments, and  the  governments  are  urging  the  Ministers  to 
hurry  and  wind  up  things.  I  am  in  hopes  that  this  will 
be  more  effective  than  even  missionary  appeals. 

Things  in  the  camp  are  all  wrought  up,  now,  and  every- 
body is  looking  at  everybody  else  with  blood  in  his  eye. 
It  is  all  over  a  question  of  quarters.  I  told  you  a  few  days 
ago  that  I  expected  to  have  to  move.  Well,  it  hasn't  come 
to  that  yet.  The  General  told  the  officers  to  choose  their 
quarters  according  to  rank.  Then,  as  the  choice  didn't 
suit  him,  he  ordered  some  changes,  and  the  whole  thing 
went  topsy-turvy.  Everybody  wants  the  same  room  as 
everybody  else.  About  a  dozen  want  the  room  I  am  in 
and  another  dozen  want  the  room  that  Reeves,  my  side 
partner,  is  in.  We  are  just  standing  here,  and  won't 
move  until  some  fellow  comes  along  with  an  order  telling 
us  to  get  out,  and  if  I'm  not  very  much  mistaken.  Gen- 
eral Chaffee  will  tell  the  fellow  with  that  order  that  he 
has  another  guess  coming.  At  all  events,  I  am  not 
bothering  my  head  about  it,  and  I  don't  intend  to, 
either. 

Peking,    Monday,    November    19,    1900,    being    the 
twenty-eighth  day  of  the  ninth  moon  of  the  26th 
year  of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 
The  ninth  moon  on  the  Chinese  calendar  certainly  ap- 
pears to  be  waning  without  any  progress  in  the  negotia- 
tions for  peace  in  the  Celestial  Empire,  or  any  progress 


152  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

homeward  by  your  humble  servant.  The  hitch  now  is  be- 
tween the  Russians  on  the  one  side  and  the  English  and 
the  Germans  on  the  other.  The  English  and  the  Germans 
want  to  get  into  the  preliminary  demand  a  proposal,  made 
by  the  Italians,  that  when  the  matter  of  settling  the  in- 
demnities for  the  damages  done  to  foreign  property  comes 
up,  the  Chinese  shall  agree  to  settle  and  to  give  guaran- 
tees of  payment  on  a  basis  to  be  proposed  at  that  time 
by  the  allied  powers.  The  Russians  won't  agree  to  this, 
and  the  English  and  German  Ministers  have  been  in- 
structed to  refuse  to  sign  the  note  unless  this  provision  is 
in.  And  there  they  are — deadlocked,  and  waiting  until 
they  get  further  orders  from  Europe.  I  don't  think  you 
can  do  anything  about  it,  for,  by  the  time  that  you  get  this 
letter,  of  course,  the  question  will  be  settled,  one  way  or 
the  other,  but  if  a  letter  would  reach  you  in  a  day  or  two 
instead  of  a  month,  I  should  ask  you  to  use  your  influence 
with  His  Nibs  the  Czar,  or  their  Imperial  Highnesses, 
Queen  Vic  and  the  Kaiser.  But,  as  I  said,  it  will  be  too 
late,  so  I  guess  you  need  not  bother  about  it. 

I  am  fixed  up  here  in  a  heap  more  comfortable  fashion 
now  than  I  was  a  day  or  so  ago.  Reeves  and  I  have  suc- 
ceeded in  capturing  a  fair-sized  stove  and  have  put  it  in 
the  middle  room  of  our  three-roomed  summer-house  in 
the  Temple  of  Agriculture.  We  can  heat  the  house  fairly 
well  during  the  days  that  are  not  windy.  On  the  windy 
days  the  cold  and  the  dust  sweep  through  a  thousand  crev- 
ices, and  it  is  still  a  good  deal  of  a  barn.  We  have 
a  Chinaman  at  work  now,  pasting  strips  of  paper  over  the 
holes  he  can  find,  and  very  likely  that  will  help  some.  As 
usual,  "  Hope  so,  anyway." 

I  wrote  you  in  my  Christmas  letter  that  I  had  a  piece  of 
fur  for  the  youngsters,  which  I  thought  you  could  have 
made  into  the  lining  of  overcoats  or  gloves  for  them.  One 
has  to  wait  his  opportunity  to  send  things  from  here,  you 
know,  and  the  opportunity  has  not  come  yet,  but  I  hear 
that  there  is  a  dispatch-bag  leaving  here  in  about  four 
days,  and  I  am  going  to  try  to  get  it,  or  them,  in  that. 
There  are  two  pieces,  both  in  the  shape  of  garments,  of 
course.  Everything  like  that  here  is  in  the  shape  of  gar- 
ments.   One  is  of  squirrel  and  the  other  is  a  white  fur — 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  153 

I  don't  know  what  it  is  oalled.  To  use  as  linings  for  coats 
or  gloves,  of  course,  tli^  will  have  to  be  taken  from  the 
garments.  That  isn't  much  of  a  job.  The  garments 
themselves,  as  they  are,  are  more  or  less  swell,  as  I  think 
you  will  admit  when  you  see  them. 

Where  they  came  from  I  don't  know,  and  I  haven't 
asked  any  questions.  I  came  by  them  legitimately,  by 
right  of  purchase,  and  that  is  sufficient  in  this  city  of 
Peking.  One  of  them  (the  squirrel)  is  a  mandarin  coat. 
That  is  shown  by  the  centre-pieces,  front  and  back.  They 
are  signs  of  rank,  and  are  worn  only  by  officials  entitled  to 
wear  them.  I'll  do  the  best  I  can  to  get  them  in  the  next 
dispatch  bag,  and  I  think  I'll  succeed ;  but  if  I  don't  I'll 
simply  have  to  wait.  If  they  get  in  that  bag  they  should 
reach  Brooklyn  about  January  15.  That's  a  pretty  late 
Christmas,  but  it  is  the  best  that  can  be  done,  and  I  hope 
you  will  be  able  to  make  the  little  fellows  understand.  I 
will  send  in  the  same  package  two  or  three  cloisenais  (I 
guess  that's  a  pretty  poor  stab  at  spelling,  but  it  is  the 
best  I  can  do,  and  you  know  what  I  mean,  anyway)  belt 
buckles,  that  you  may  present  to  the  young  ladies  of  the 
family  or  keep  for  yourself,  as  you  choose.  Properly 
cleaned  up  I  think  they  will  look  very  nice. 

Peking,  Tuesday,  November  20,  1900,  being  the 
twenty-ninth  day  of  the  ninth  month  of  the  26th 
year  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

I  have  been  trying  to  keep  the  numbers  on  the  outside 
of  my  letters  straight,  but  I  fear  that  now  and  then  they 
get  sadly  mixed.  I  remember  that  I  numbered  yester- 
day's letter  90,  but  I  think  the  number  was  wrong.  It 
may  be  a  duplicate  number,  or  it  may  be  a  jump  of  one  or 
two.  If  it  is  a  jump,  do  not  think  that  you  have  lost  any 
of  the  letters,  for  the  fault  is  probably  mine.  The  date  on 
the  inside  will  tell  you  if  any  are  missing,  for  I  write 
every  day.  If  I  miss  a  day,  as  I  have  several  times,  then 
I'll  tell  you  in  the  next  letter  that  I  did  not  write  the  day 
before. 

This  has  been  another  of  the  days  when  very  little  has 
happened  that  will  interest  you.  Of  course  I  was  at  the 
Legation  a  part  of  the  day.    I  thought  I  would  give  my 


164  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

pony  a  rest,  so  I  started  to  walk  up  there,  but  it  was  so 
dusty  that  before  I  had  gone  halfway  I  changed  my  mind 
and  climbed  into  a  'ricksha  pulled  by  a  lank  Chinaman 
who  went  ofif  at  top  speed  when  I  told  him  "  chop  chop." 
He  almost  dumped  me  out  every  time  I  came  to  a  corner, 
so  that  really  I  did  not  have  a  very  satisfactory  ride.  But 
I  got  there  just  the  same.  Think  what  a  spill  I  would 
have  made  if  I  had  been  dumped !  I  walked  back,  and  on 
the  way  I  caught  sight  of  two  more  pieces  of  bronze  that 
were  pretty.  I  dickered  with  the  Chinaman  who  had  them 
and  got  them  for  almost  nothing.  They  are  very  old 
pieces,  and,  polished  up  and  put  on  our  mantel,  they  will 
make  the  mantels  of  some  of  our  neighbors  look  like  30 
cents.  Unfortunately  both  of  them  are  too  heavy  to  send 
in  the  mails,  and  I  shall  have  to  store  them  away  in  my 
loot-chest  and  bring  them  with  me  when  I  come. 

I  ran  across  another  funny  Chinese  custom  to-day.  I 
passed  on  the  way  to  the  Legation  a  most  vividly  deco- 
rated sedan  chair,  carried  by  four  men.  It  was  all  draped 
with  red  and  covered  with  red  paper  flowers.  It  was  tight 
shut,  so  I  could  not  see  what  sort  of  a  person  was  in  it. 
The  whole  affair  was  most  gorgeous,  and  when  I  got  to  the 
Legation  I  asked  the  Chinese  Secretary  for  an  explana- 
tion. He  told  me  that  the  chair  was  undoubtedly  a  bridal 
chair,  and  contained  a  bride  on  the  way  to  her  future  home. 
She  had  never  seen  her  husband,  nor  had  he  seen  her.  The 
custom  here  is  for  the  parents  to  pick  out  a  wife  for  their 
son,  and  then  make  all  the  arrangements.  When  they  are 
completed  they  tell  him  that  he  is  to  be  married,  and 
whom  he  is  to  marry.  He  says  "  all  right,"  and  waits  at 
home  while  they  go  out  and  complete  the  arrangements. 
The  bride's  parents  send  and  get  a  chair  and  tell  their 
daughter  she  is  to  marry  so-and-so.  She  says  "  all 
right,"  climbs  into  the  chair,  and  is  lugged  off  with  joy- 
ous spirit  and  delivered  to  her  husband. 

That  is  all  the  ceremony  there  is.  Once  she  starts  on 
her  journey  she  puts  her  own  family  behind  her  forever. 
She  is  never  a  member  of  it  again.  She  becomes  a  mem- 
ber of  her  husband's  parents'  family,  and,  being  the  newest 
member,  is  the  drudge  of  the  household  and  spends  all  her 
days  trying  to  make  the  (his)  old  folks  happy.    She  never 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  155 

thinks  again  of  her  own  mother  and  father  if  she  is  a  duti- 
ful wife.  She  continues  to  be  nobody  and  a  drudge  un- 
til she  is  a  mother  herself,  and  then  she  is  honored  and 
looked  up  to  as  a  woman  should  be,  particularly  if  the 
child  is  a  son.  She  ceases  then  to  be  a  drudge,  but  she 
doesn't  cease  to  devote  the  most  of  her  time  to  looking 
after  the  comfort  of  her  father-in-law  and  mother-in-law. 
This  is  very  unlike  our  country,  is  it  not  ?  It  is  the  cus- 
tom, though,  and  as  such  is  honored  and  considered  to  be 
the  best  in  the  world.  Our  ideas  are  looked  on  by  the 
Chinese  as  heathenish  and  utterly  without  excuse,  just 
about  as  we  look  at  theirs. 

Peking,  Wednesday,  November  21,  1900,  or  the  thir- 
tieth day,  ninth  moon,  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
Kuang  Hsu,  H.  I.  M. 

Our  friends  the  Ministers  are  still  at  odds  with  each 
other  over  the  question  of  how  the  finances  of  China  shall 
be  run.  They  are  rather  standing  off  and  making  faces 
at  each  other.  However,  I  have  strong  hopes  that  within 
a  few  days  they  will  realize  that  this  is  not  what  they  are 
hired  for,  and  then  I  guess  they  will  settle  down  and  settle 
up,  as  it  were.  In  the  meantime,  patience  is  a  virtue,  and 
we  shall  have  to  acquire  a  quantity  of  it  to  run  us  through 
the  spell  that  is  on. 

I  made  a  trip  up  the  Hateman  street  this  morning. 
There  is  where  I  got  the  embroideries  I  sent  you.  It 
was  a  sight  to  behold,  I  can  tell  you.  The  place  was 
crowded  from  building  to  building  with  Chinese,  and 
everybody  had  something  to  sell.  Here  and  there  was  a 
European  in  the  act  of  buying,  but  they  were  rare  enough, 
and  the  Chinamen  were  preying  on  each  other.  It  is  a 
funny  thing  to  watch  them  bargain.  The  article  in  ques- 
tion may  be  worth  only  5  cash  or  half  a  cent,  but  they  will 
go  at  each  other  hammer  and  tongs.  They  call  each  other 
names,  intimate  that  their  parents  were  of  low  descent, 
grab  each  other  by  the  shoulders,  and  pull  and  haul  about 
until  you  would  be  certain  they  were  really  fighting. 
Finally,  after  ten  or  fifteen  minutes  of  this  sort  of  thing, 
they  will  come  to  an  agreement.  If  the  article  sold  was 
first  priced  at  5  cash,  maybe  the  purchaser  will  get  it  for  4 


156  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

cash,  thus  saving  one-tenth  of  a  cent,  and  he  will  go  away 
so  happy  that  he  can  hardly  talk,  while  the  dealer  who 
did  the  selling  and  knew  that  the  article  was  worth  only  3 
cash,  will  be  just  as  happy  because  he  succeeded  in  selling 
it  for  4  cash.    They  act  as  if  their  lives  depended  upon  it. 

Embroideries  such  as  I  sent  you  are  pretty  well  out  of 
the  market  now,  but  there  is  a  great  deal  of  other  pretty 
stuff.  The  Chinamen,  however,  have  stiffened  up  on  their 
prices,  and  there  are  not  a  great  many  bargains  to  be 
picked  up — that  is,  not  nearly  so  many  as  there  were.  A 
little  later  on  they  will  come  out  again,  I  think,  and  if  I 
am  still  here  I  shall  pick  up  some  more.  When  things 
can  be  bought  practically  for  nothing  it  is  a  good  time  to 
buy,  even  if  you  don't  need  what  you  get  just  at  the  mo- 
ment— don't  you  think  so? 

I  met  Mrs.  Conger  upon  the  street.  She  was  buying  a 
lot  of  stuff  for  curtains  and  portieres.  During  the  siege 
all  the  Legation  furnishings  of  that  character  had  to  be 
used  for  the  purpose  of  making  sand-bags  to  build  fortifi- 
cations with.  In  those  days  nothing  was  too  good  to  cut 
up  to  make  into  sand-bags.  They  were  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  keep  off  the  rain  of  bullets  that  the  heathen  poured 
into  the  Legation  compounds.  Of  course,  now  the  Chinese 
will  have  to  pay  for  it  all,  and  it  will  be  a  pretty  bill,  too. 
I  don't  know  how  much  it  will  be,  but  you  can  bet 
your  bottom  dollar  nobody  who  lost  anything  will  put  in  a 
claim  for  a  cent  less  than  it  is  worth. 

A  sample  of  what  will  be  done  is  shown  by  our  friends 
the  missionaries.  They  have  been  putting  in  their  claims 
for  damages  for  a  week  or  so  now,  and  Squiers,  the  First 
Secretary  of  the  Legation,  told  me  to-day  that  already 
the  claims  foot  up  to  in  the  neighborhood  of  $300,000, 
Pretty  good,  isn't  it,  for  the  meek  and  humble  mission- 
aries, who,  we  have  been  taught,  are  suffering  privations 
out  here  in  China,  all  for  the  cause?  There  are  about 
thirty  of  them  who  have  put  in  claims  so  far.  They  have 
lost  their  all,  but  they  are  living  in  palaces  now.  I  sup- 
pose it  is  all  right,  though.  I  am  living  in  a  temple  my- 
self, and  the  man  who  lives  in  a  stone  house  shouldn't 
throw  glass  balls,  hey  ? 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  157 

Peking^  Thursday,  November  22,  1900,  first  day,  tenth 
moon,  26th  year,  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

Another  moon  has  gone,  and  to-day,  in  this  land  of 
the  heathen  Chinee,  we  entered  upon  the  tenth  moon.  I 
saw  the  new  moon  to-night,  but  it  wasn't  over  my  left 
shoulder,  and  I  don't  know  whether  it  is  good  or  bad  luck, 
or  what  kind  of  luck  it  is.  I  guess  it  isn't  any  luck  at  all ; 
that's  what  I  guess.  It  is  just  a  week  from  Thanks- 
giving day,  too.  I  was  reminded  of  that  fact  by  Min- 
ister Conger  when  I  called  upon  him  this  morning.  He 
said  that  it  had  been  the  custom  at  the  Legation  for  a 
good  many  years  to  have  a  Thanksgiving  dinner,  and  to 
invite  to  it  all  the  Americans  who  were  in  Peking,  but  last 
year  there  were  seventy-two  Americans  in  the  place.  That 
was  more  than  could  be  accommodated  at  the  Legation 
table,  so  a  dinner  was  impossible,  and  it  had  been  changed 
to  an  afternoon  luncheon.  This  year,  he  said,  the  situa- 
tion was  the  same,  and  instead  of  a  dinner  he  proposed 
having  a  luncheon.  He  had  asked  General  Chaffee  to  in- 
vite all  the  military  officers  to  come,  and  he  asked  me  to 
invite  all  the  American  newspaper  correspondents.  In 
view  of  the  fact  that  I  couldn't  possibly  get  home  to  my 
own  home  and  help  you  all  eat  your  turkey  I  consented. 

This  won't  be  a  Thanksgiving  turkey  day  with  us  out 
here,  by  the  way.  The  turkey  is  a  rare  bird  in  China,  and 
Reeves  and  I  haven't  been  able  to  find  any  at  all,  so  on 
Thanksgiving  Day  we  shall  have  to  content  ourselves  with 
the  knowledge  that  the  folks  at  home  are  probably  eating 
enough  more  than  their  share  to  make  up  what  we  lack 
in  the  heathen  land.  Of  course.  Thanksgiving  is  not  cele- 
brated out  here  in  Peking  at  all.  The  custom  never  was 
introduced,  and  then,  when  you  look  back  on  the  past 
few  months  and  forward  to  the  next  few,  the  Chinaman 
has  mighty  little  to  be  thankful  for.  He  has  his  life 
merely  because  he  had  good,  stout  legs  to  help  him  in  get-> 
ting  out  of  the  way  of  the  guns  and  the  bayonets  of  the 
Christian  soldiers  when  they  came,  and  that's  about  the' 
sum  total  of  his  reason  for  thankfulness.  The  Legation 
people  who  went  through  the  siege  have  a  heap  to 
be  thankful  for,  though,  and  they  surely  have  good  rea- 
son for  celebrating  the  day.     I  think  I  myself  would  have 


158  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

a  little  more  reason  for  celebrating  the  day  if  the  Min- 
isters would  only  come  to  some  understanding  among 
themselves  about  what  they  intend  to  do.  Maybe  they 
will  between  now  and  then — who  knows? 

I  ran  across  another  funny  Chinese  custom  to-day,  just 
as  I  did  the  other  day  when  I  saw  the  marriage  procession. 
I  think  I  told  you  about  that.  On  the  way  to  the  Le- 
gation I  passed  a  Chinese  band  and  a  procession  headed  by 
a  fine  coffin.  The  band  was  playing  lively  airs,  and  every- 
body looked  happy.  I  thought  at  the  time  that  it  was  a 
mighty  happy  funeral  party,  but  when  I  came  to  inquire 
I  learned  that  it  was  not  a  funeral  party  at  all,  but  a  coffin 
presentation  party.  The  young  people  of  a  family  were 
making  a  present  of  a  coffin  to  the  old  folks.  It's  quite  a 
fad,  I  learn,  among  these  folks.  About  the  highest  class 
present  you  can  give  to  your  mother  and  father  is  a  coffin. 
It  is  the  highest  mark  of  filial  affection,  and  the  old  folks 
who  get  a  coffin  are  proud  as  peacocks  and  forever  bless 
the  children  who  gave  it  to  them.  In  our  country  we 
might  think  that  such  a  present  was  a  hint  that  it  was 
about  time  to  use  the  gift,  but  it  is  different  here.  So  is 
everything  else  different.  When  I  learned  the  appropri- 
ateness of  a  coffin  as  a  present,  I  learned  also  that  it  is  a 
habit  out  here  to  buy  a  coffin  early  in  life  and  stow  it  away 
for  a  rainy  day.  When  a  person  has  money  to  spare  he 
is  just  as  likely  as  not  to  put  it  in  a  coffin  so  that  he  may 
be  sure  to  have  this  wooden  overcoat  if  anything  should 
happen  to  him. 

But,  to  get  off  this  more  or  less  gruesome  subject,  it 
was  a  fine  day  in  Peking  to-day.  Just  crisply  cold  enough 
to  be  able  to  enjoy  one's  self.  And  with  this  bit  of  infor- 
mation about  the  weather,  I'll  close  another  chapter  in 
this  series  of  windy  letters  that  are  going  to  you  daily. 

Peking,  Friday,  November  23,  1900,  the  same  being 

the  second  day  of  the  fifth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of 

the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

Another  mean  day.    Here  in  Peking  we  don't  seem  to 

get  more  than  one  good  day  at  a  time  at  this  season  of  the 

year,  and  the  next  day  is  a  mean  one.     Yesterday  was 

fine,  and  to-day  it  is  windy  and  dusty  and  unpleasant.    I 


ORDEREDTOCHINA  169 

have  made  pretty  g-ood  use  of  the  day,  nevertheless.  I 
got  hold  of  some  silk  that  will  make  as  fine  portieres  as 
you  ever  saw.  It  seems  that  the  British  found  the  Im- 
perial Silk  Storehouse  and  it  had  something  like  17,000 
rolls  of  silk  in  it.  Of  course  they  took  it,  and  now  they 
are  selling  it.  It  is  practically  all  tapestry  silk  for  use  in 
house  furnishing,  and  it  is  worth  in  the  market  from  40  to 
60  taels  a  bolt.  That  is  almost  $70  Mex.  The  British 
are  selling  it  at  $6  Mex,  a  bolt,  with  from  14  to  20  yards 
in  a  bolt.  It  is  stuff  that  ordinarily  can't  be  purchased  at 
all. 

Over  here  a  great  deal  of  the  tax  is  paid  to  the  govern- 
ment in  the  shape  of  products.  The  silk  manufacturers, 
for  instance,  instead  of  paying  a  tax  in  money,  make  so 
much  silk  and  send  it  to  the  royal  family.  This  silk  is 
absolutely  the  finest  that  can  be  made.  Of  course  the 
merchant  would  not  dare  send  anything  but  the  very  best 
to  the  Emperor.  This  silk  is  "  kumm,"  or  tribute  silk. 
Much  more  of  it  is  sent  to  the  court  than  can  possibly  be 
used,  and  so  it  is  stored  in  the  Imperial  Storehouse.  Then, 
when  the  Emperor  wants  to  make  a  present,  he  may  give 
so  many  bolts  of  this  silk.  Very  often  the  present  is 
made  to  somebody  who  has  no  use  for  the  silk,  and  then 
that  somebody  goes  outside  the  Forbidden  City  at  once  and 
sells  it.  That  is  the  only  way  the  tribute  or  Imperial  silk 
ever  gets  on  the  market,  and  is  the  reason,  I  suppose,  why 
it  is  so  very  high-priced.  Well,  I  bought  three  rolls  of  this 
stuff  to-day  at  the  British  sale.  It  took  a  long  time  to  tell 
you  that,  didn't  it  ?  But  I  wanted  to  give  you  some  idea 
of  the  way  the  royal  family  in  China  gets  its  silk,  and 
that's  the  story. 

There  is  nothing  here  to  report  yet  about  the  Minis- 
ters and  peace.  They  have  not  agreed  on  the  financial 
plank  in  their  demands  yet,  and  neither  side  shows  any 
sign  of  giving  in.  One  or  the  other  will  have  to  come 
down,  certain  sure,  and  that  very  soon,  and  when  one 
does  I  do  not  see  why  there  should  be  any  very  great 
delay  in  settling  with  the  Chinese.  I  had  another  long 
talk  with  Mr.  Conger  to-day,  and  he  said  that  he  was 
ready,  just  as  soon  as  the  others  were. 

There  was  a  bully  illustration  to-day  of  the  foolishness 


160  ORDEREDTOCHINA 

of  the  Chinese  people — I  mean  of  the  throne.  The  Em- 
peror or  the  Empress  Dowager  has  issued  an  edict,  in 
effect  that  since  for  a  number  of  years  all  the  arsenals  in 
China  had  been  kept  busy  manufacturing  so-called  mod- 
ern arms,  so  much  time  had  been  devoted  to  this,  the  edict 
said,  that  there  had  been  none  left  to  make  the  jingals  and 
two-man  guns  and  bows  and  arrows  that  were  the 
weapons  of  their  ancestors,  and  with  which  China  had 
won  all  of  her  victories.  The  edict  went  on  to  say  that 
this  had  been  a  woeful  mistake  on  the  part  of  China,  and 
that  somebody  should  be  punished  for  it.  What  good 
were  these  new  weapons?  the  edict  demanded.  Were 
they  not  in  the  hands  of  the  Chinese  during  the  siege, 
and  what  did  they  accomplish?  Nothing  at  all.  The 
Emperor  and  Empress  were  driven  out  of  the  capital  and 
the  whole  Empire  had  been  upset.  It  was  all  the  fault  of 
the  modern  weapons.  Then  the  edict  ordered  that  the 
arsenals  should  cease  making  the  new  guns  and  should  re- 
sume the  manufacture  of  the  weapons  of  their  ancestors, 
in  order  that  the  Empire  might  win  more  victories. 
What  do  you  think  of  that  for  damphoolishness?  Well, 
there  is  this  satisfaction,  anyway :  If  the  order  is  fol- 
lowed out,  China  won't  be  as  dangerous  another  time  as 
she  was  the  last. 

Peking,  Saturday,  November  24,  1900,  moon  10,  day  3, 
year  26  of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

Good  news  at  last !  The  Ministers  have  agreed !  Of 
course  you  knew  this  a  month  ago,  but,  then,  you  must  not 
be  too  critical.  Now,  if  the  Governments  will  only  ap- 
prove what  the  Ministers  have  done,  and  do  it  quickly, 
the  Ministers  will  sign  the  note  and  will  send  it  to  the 
Chinese  Peace  Commissioners,  and  they  will  present  it 
to  the  throne,  and  then  the  negotiations  for  peace  will 
actually  have  been  begun.  Once  that  happens,  I  don't 
think  it  will  take  a  very  long  time  to  carry  them  through 
to  the  end,  for  the  Chinese  are  in  no  position  to  resist  any 
demand  that  may  be  made,  no  matter  how  great  it  is.  The 
powers,  knowing  this,  will,  I  think,  take  advantage  of  it, 
and  will  demand  more  than  they  are  entitled  to,  and  in 
that  event  affairs  will  be  longer  drawn  out  than  they 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  161 

should  be,  but  not  much  longer.  In  fact,  everything  looks 
now  on  the  high  road  to  a  quick  settlement,  and  it  can't 
be  too  quick  for  me,  I  can  tell  you. 

Going  up  town  this  afternoon  to  get  this  news  I  stum- 
bled over  a  drunken  soldier  in  a  'ricksha.  Just  before  I 
came  to  him  he  gravely  descended,  and  putting  a  rope 
around  the  neck  of  the  Chinaman  who  was  drawing  the 
'ricksha,  he  tied  him  to  a  hitching-post  just  as  if  he  were 
a  horse.  Then  the  soldier  went  into  a  nearby  canteen. 
The  Chinaman  submitted  to  it  all,  and  didn't  even  try  to 
take  the  rope  off.  It  struck  my  funny  bone,  and  I  haven't 
gotten  over  laughing  at  the  show  yet. 

General  Chaffee's  new  headquarters  here  in  Peking  are 
getting  pretty  well  settled  down,  now,  and  things  are  be- 
coming more  comfortable  than  they  have  been.  To-night 
the  General  is  giving  a  dinner  to  a  lot  of  French  and  Ger- 
man officers.  I  was  invited,  but  I  begged  off  on  the  plea 
that  I  had  a  lot  of  work  to  do,  and  I  am  glad  I  did,  for, 
from  the  noise  that  is  coming  from  the  banquet  hall,  they 
are  having  a  hilarious  time,  and  that's  the  sort  of  a  time  I 
want  to  keep  out  of  when  I  am  as  far  away  from  home  as 
I  am  here.  I  really  did  have  a  lot  of  work  to  do,  but  I  am 
not  doing  it.  I  can't  do  satisfactory  work  by  candle-light, 
and  that  is  still  the  only  light  it  is  possible  to  get  here  at 
night.  My  eyes  ache  if  I  try  to  work  much  by  it,  and 
about  all  that  I  care  to  test  them  on  is  in  writing  the  daily 
letter  home.  I  am  going  to  bite  this  letter  short  off  to- 
night. It  has  good  news  enough  in  it  to  make  up  for 
its  shortness,  and  I'm  tired. 

Peking,  November  25,  1900,  the  same  being  Sunday, 
and,  in  Chinese,  the  fourth  day  of  the  tenth  month 
of  the  26th  year  of   the  reign  of   Kuang  Hsu, 
H.  I.  M. 
They  say  the  better  the  day  the  better  the  deed,  and,  to- 
day being  Sunday,  Reeves  and  I  put  it  in  fixing  up  our 
rooms  so  they  would  be  more  presentable  and  more  com- 
fortable.   The  floors  of  this  three-room,  two-by-four  man- 
sion we  occupy  are  of  stone,  and  you  can  imagine  just  how 
cold  it  has  been  in  this  winter  weather.    We  captured  two 
pieces  of  felt  that  just  fit  the  floors.    It  is  about  half  an 


162  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

inch  thick.  I  say  it  just  fits  the  rooms.  You  couldn't 
guess  why.  Well,  the  reason  is  that  in  China  all  rooms 
are  built  exactly  the  same  size,  all  rugs  are  built  exactly 
the  same  size,  and  all  pieces  of  felt  that  are  intended  to 
cover  the  floor  are  built  exactly  the  same  size.  You  see, 
t^e  rugs  are  built  to  fit  the  rooms,  or  the  rooms  are  built 
to  fit  the  rugs,  whichever  you  call  it. 

This  is  another  peculiarity  of  the  Chinese  that  they  carry 
to  an  extreme.  Here  all  chairs  are  built  exactly  alike; 
that  is,  the  parts  fit  into  each  other  so  that  the  leg  of  one 
chair  will  fit  any  other  chair,  and  the  arm  of  any  chair  will 
fit  on  any  other  chair.  Tables  are  built  in  three  sizes ;  the 
legs  are  all  the  same.  If  the  leg  of  a  table  breaks,  all  you 
have  to  do  is  to  buy  a  new  leg  and  put  it  on.  If  the  top 
breaks  you  can  buy  a  new  top,  or  you  can  build  an  entirely 
new  table  or  an  entirely  new  chair  from  the  pieces  of  old 
ones,  for  every  piece  fits  every  other  piece.  The  trunks 
are  built  of  the  same  kind  of  wood  and  all  of  the  same 
size,  and,  if  the  top  of  your  trunk  is  smashed,  you  can 
buy  a  new  top.  The  same  with  the  wardrobes,  the  beds, 
the  desks,  the  washstands — everything  is  alike.  It  is  all 
very  convenient,  you  see,  and  it  is  economical  as  can  be, 
though  the  sameness  does  become  somewhat  wearing  on  a 
person  after  he  stays  here  a  while. 

This  sameness  goes  even  further.  The  clothing  of  a 
Chinaman  is  all  built  on  the  same  pattern.  There  is  no 
variation  at  all.  The  coat  that  is  built  for  the  father  will 
fit  the  son,  even  down  to  the  eighth  generation,  so  that 
everything  is  sure  to  be  worn  until  it  is  actually  worn  out. 
When  the  well-to-do  man  gets  through  with  his  clothing 
he  sells  it  to  his  servant.  When  his  servant  wears  it  un- 
til he  is  ashamed  of  it  he  sells  it  to  the  coolies,  and  the 
coolie  will  wear  it  until  it  falls  off  him  in  pieces.  You 
see,  the  arrangement  is  a  very  economical  one,  indeed. 
There  is  no  question  about  the  fit,  for  the  clothes  are  all 
alike,  and  the  rich  man's  clothing  fits  just  as  well  as,  or 
doesn't  fit  any  better  than,  that  of  the  poorest  man. 

However,  this  is  digressing.  I  started  to  tell  you  that 
Reeves  and  I  fixed  up  our  rooms.  After  we  got  our  felt 
down  we  rustled  a  couple  of  bolts  of  red  silk,  and  of  this 
we  made  curtains.    Then,  another  point,  it  is  no  trouble  to 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  163 

make  curtains  here,  for  the  reason  that  all  the  windows 
are  of  the  same  size  and  exactly  alike,  so  that  when  a 
house  is  torn  down  the  windows  are  not  destroyed,  but 
are  put  in  a  new  house.  In  building-  curtains,  all  you  have 
to  do  is  to  make  the  first  one  right  and  the  others  just 
like  it.  They  will  fit  any  window.  The  front  of  our  house 
is  made  up  of  windows.  We  have  six.  And  so  we  built 
six  curtains  and  hung  them.  We  had  an  American  flag 
and  we  draped  that  on  one  side  of  our  sitting  room.  We 
had  six  Chinese  swords  and  we  crossed  them  and  hung 
them  on  the  other  side.  We  made  a  lounge  out  of  two 
trunks  and  covered  it  with  the  remnants  of  the  curtain 
silk,  and  maybe  you  think  we  didn't  feel  proud !  With  a 
little  more  furniture  we  shall  have  quite  a  place,  I  can  tell 
you. 

Everybody  is  waiting  now  to  see  what  the  Govern- 
ments will  do  about  the  preliminary  note  that  the  Minis- 
ters have  prepared  to  present  to  the  Chinese.  I  don't  see 
myself  why  there  should  be  any  question  about  it,  or  why 
it  should  have  to  be  sent  home  for  approval,  for  during 
the  meeting-s  every  Minister  has  discussed  every  point 
with  his  home  Government,  and  he  has  not  agreed  to  a 
single  thing  without  a  direct  authorization  from  home. 
So,  for  that  matter,  every  Government  has  already  agreed 
to  the  note  in  detail.  The  ways  of  diplomacy,  though, 
are  past  finding  out,  and  they  are  certainly  slower  than 
molasses  in  the  Winter  time.  All  we  can  do  here  now  is  to 
wait,  and  to  hope  that  they  will  quickly  approve  and  let  the 
negotiations  go  ahead. 

Peking,  November  26,  1900,  or  Monday,  the  fifth  day 
of  the  tenth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  t,he  reign  of 
Kuang  Hsu. 

I  sent  off  a  long  cable  to-day,  expressing  a  few  succinct 
opinions  concerning  the  Germans.  They  are  still  shooting 
around  here,  just  as  if  a  war  were  going  on.  They 
don't  think  anything  at  all  of  a  Chinaman's  life,  and  on  the 
least  excuse  they  shoot  them  down  like  so  many  dogs. 
As  you  have  probably  noticed  in  my  dispatches  I  have 
NOT  much  use  for  the  German  soldiers  anyhow.  They 
are  a  big  lot  of  swine,  if  human  beings  ever  are  swine. 


164  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

Beginning  to-day  I  will  be  without  a  helper  up  here  in 
Peking.  When  D.  went  away  fr'om  the  city  he  left 
a  youngster  from  Denver,  Colo.,  to  look  out  for  things, 
and  I  have  been  keeping  him  to  run  around  and  do  er- 
rands, but  I  am  so  well  acquainted  with  Peking  now  that 
I  don't  need  him  and  he  is  a  useless  expense,  so  I  have  let 
him  go.  He  is  going  home  via  Europe  and  will  have  a 
fine  jamboree,  getting  to  New  York  about  March  or  April. 
You  see,  he  is  going  to  stop  everywhere  en  route.  His 
going  will  make  my  work  a  little  harder,  which  will  be  a 
good  thing  for  me.  As  what-you-may-call-him  says,  "  a 
reasonable  amount  of  fleas  is  a  good  thing  for  a  dog;  it 
keeps  him  from  brooding  on  being  a  dog."  More  work 
will  keep  me  from  brooding,  and  it  will  also  enable  me  to 
work  off  some  of  the  superfluous  fat  I  have  been  tak- 
ing on. 

I  have  been  getting  so  fat  that  Pm  almost  ashamed, 
now,  to  be  seen  on  the  street  on  anything  but  a  big  horse. 
I  am  afraid  of  being  arrested  for  cruelty  to  animals  if  I 
ride  a  Chinese  pony.  I  have  three  horses.  They  are  all 
Chinese,  and  I  count  them  among  my  misfortunes  instead 
of  my  fortunes.  Two  of  them  are  white  and  one  is  black. 
They  all  kick  out  the  side  of  the  barn  about  once  a  week, 
and  the  only  way  they  can  be  saddled  is  to  lasso  them  and 
tie  them  up,  while  the  only  way  they  can  be  shod  is  to  lasso 
them  and  knock  them  down.  I  haven't  been  kicked  myself, 
but  the  orderly  who  cares  for  them  has  had  the  liver 
kicked  out  of  him  once  or  twice  and  is  going  around  now 
with  his  arm  in  a  sling.  He  was  taking  the  pony  I  ride 
to  water.  The  little  runt  shied  and  threw  him.  He  stuck 
out  his  hand  to  catch  himself  and  fell  and  split  the  flesh 
at  the  thumb.  Instead  of  taking  care  of  the  wound,  as  I 
told  him  to,  he  got  dirt  in  it,  and  now  he  is  suffering  from 
blood-poisoning,  and  if  he  doesn't  look  out  he  may  lose 
his  arm.  I  can  tell  you  Chinese  ponies  are  fine  things  to 
let  alone,  and  I  shall  get  rid  of  my  three  just  as  soon  as  I 
can  get  along  without  them.  Of  course,  you  understand, 
I  don't  ride  all  three  at  once,  but  I  have  so  much  riding 
to  do  that  it  requires  three  horses  to  do  it.  Horses  and 
'rickshas  are  the  only  means  of  getting  around  out  here, 
and  of  the  two  I  prefer  horses.     'Rickshas  can  travel 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  165 

only  on  the  hard  roads.  If  a  road  is  deep  and  dusty, 
as  most  Peking  roads  are,  the  men  can't  pull  them 
at  all. 

Well,  I  am  getting  to  the  end  of  my  paper,  and  I'll 
cut  off. 

Peking,  Tuesday,  the  sixth  day  of  the  tenth  moon  of 
the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of  Kuang  Hsu,  the  same 
being  November  27,  1900. 

I  have  been  out  on  a  turkey-hunting  expedition  and 
have  gone  bust.  That  is,  I  didn't  get  the  turkey  and  our 
happy  home  here  is  going  to  get  along  this  evening. 
Thanksgiving  Day,  without  either  turkey  or  cranberry 
sauce.  I  think  I  told  you  in  a  letter  some  days  ago  that 
turkeys  are  not  a  common  product  in  China.  Well,  this 
morning  Reeves  and  I  heard  that  there  were  some  to  be 
had  two  miles  south  of  here  and  we  started  out  on  our 
horses  after  them.  We  searched  all  that  part  of  China 
south  of  the  Emperor's  hunting  park,  but  got  not  a 
feather  and  came  back  mightily  disappointed.  I  don't 
believe  there's  a  turkey  in  this  part  of  China,  though  I 
hear  that  there  are  some  in  Tien  Tsin.  That  is  ninety 
miles  away,  however,  and  there's  no  railroad  running  yet, 
so  they  will  have  to  stay  there,  as  far  as  I'm  concerned, 
at  least,  and  we'll  eat  goose  on  the  turkey  day. 

There  is  still  nothing  to  report  in  the  work  of  the 
Ministers.  They  are  all  waiting  to  see  what  their  home 
Governments  have  to  say  about  their  propositions.  If 
they  agree,  then  the  Ministers  will  go  ahead  and  sign  the 
demands  and  forward  them  to  the  Chinese.  I  have  had 
several  long  talks  with  Li  Hung  Chang's  Secretary, 
and  he  assures  me  that  the  Dowager  is  getting  scared 
at  last  and  that  she  is  now  willing  to  cut  off  a  few  heads 
of  Princes  and  the  like,  as  will  be  demanded  by  the  Min- 
isters. One  head  to  a  Prince,  of  course  I  mean.  One 
head  is  all  a  Prince  has,  even  in  China,  this  land  of 
strange  things  and  strange  people.  If  these  reports  are 
true  then  it  is  not  going  to  take  a  long  while  to  settle  up 
matters  after  the  demands  are  made.  But  I  can  tell  you, 
sweetheart,  I  am  getting  tired  of  talking  about  the 
plagued  old  thing  and  I  guess  the  people  are  getting 


166  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

tired  of  reading  about  it,  too.     It's  wearisome  work  all 
round. 

I  went  up  to  the  British  loot  sale  again  to-day,  but  I 
did  not  buy  anything.  Some  fellow  from  Shanghai,  a 
Chinese  silk  merchant,  came  in  and  purchased  20,000 
taels'  worth  of  the  silk.  I  think  I  have  already  told  you 
about  the  silk.  A  tael  is  a  Chinese  standard  of  value, 
though  there  is  no  such  coin.  It  is  worth  about  $1.47 
silver,  or  74  cents  gold,  so  you  see  the  Chinaman's  pur- 
chase was  a  big  one.  He  got  the  choicest  of  the  lot.  The 
sale  is  going  to  close  in  a  few  days.  I  don't  think  that 
I  will  get  any  more  of  the  stuff,  though  it  is  going  at 
ridiculous  figures.  The  hardest  thing  to  get  in  these 
diggings  is  money.  I  went  to  the  bank  the  other  day 
to  draw  $500  gold  and  all  that  they  would  give  me  was 
$870  silver.  That  was  $130  for  the  privilege  of  getting 
435  faO^cl  dollars.  It  was  a  little  more  than  I  could  stand 
and  I  didn't  get  it.  I'll  wait  until  I  find  somebody  who 
wants  to  send  money  to  the  States  and  then  I'll  do  the 
bank  by  trading  the  draft  on  New  York  for  the  cash 
here. 

Peking,  Wednesday,  November  28 ;  26th  year,  H.  I.  M. 
Kuang  Hsu,  tenth  month,  seventh  day. 

I  did  not  succeed  in  getting  the  two  packages  contain- 
ing the  fur  in  the  dispatch-bag  because  it  was  full,  but  I 
did  get  them  away  in  the  mail  to-day.  The  Government 
permits  soldiers  to  send  gifts  to  their  friends  in  the  States 
if  the  packages  are  plainly  marked  "  gifts,"  and  so  I  got 
my  two  packages  endorsed  as  "  soldier's  gifts,"  and  I  sent 
them  through  by  registered  post.  I  hope  they  reached 
you  all  right.  They  ought  to  get  to  you  before  this 
letter,  but  the  mails  are  so  irregular  that  you  can  never 
tell  when  things  get  away,  and  it  may  be  that  the  two 
packages  will  not  get  away  until  the  same  ship  that  takes 
this  letter  comes  along.  Besides  the  two  furs  there  are 
five  cloisonne  belt  buckles  and  two  handkerchiefs  such  as 
the  Chinese  women  carry,  and  a  mantel  lambrequin. 
These  latter  articles  are  sent  to  you  with  the  compliments 
of  Reeves.  The  belt  buckles  you  may  keep  or  distribute 
among  the  folks  as  Peking  souvenirs,  or  do  any  old  thing 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  167 

With  them  you  want  to  do.  I  intended  to  put  in  the  ring 
for  your  father,  but  of  course  I  forgot  it.  I  will  send  it 
along  in  another  package  that  I  will  make  up,  and  in  that 
package  I  will  try  and  send  along  the  bell  for  G.,  the 
bronze  for  C,  and  the  other  bronze  for  father. 

There  hasn't  been  much  going  on  to-day,  although  I 
have  hustled  around  all  day.  I  had  hard  scratching  to 
get  enough  for  a  short  cable.  It  is  just  as  well  that  there 
wasn't  anything,  for  when  I  went  to  the  cable  office  I 
found  that  there  was  trouble  and  they  couldn't  get  the 
station  at  Taku,  so  it  was  impossible  to  get  a  cable  off  in 
decent  shape,  anyway.  The  cable  is  still  one  of  my  chief 
troubles.  It  breaks  down  about  every  two  days  and  then 
everything  goes  wrong  and  things  are  topsy-turvy.  But 
as  you  know,  I  am  something  of  a  philosopher,  and  get 
along  with  it  as  best  I  can.  As  long  as  the  office  doesn't 
kick  I  am  satisfied. 

You  have  of  course  read  in  my  dispatches  about 'the 
asphyxiation  of  General  Count  von  Torek,  the  German 
second  in  command  here.  He  is  only  one  of  many  vic- 
tims of  an  invention  of  Satan — the  Chinese  stove.  A 
Chinese  stove  is  made  of  brick  clay.  It  is  about  two  feet 
high  and  a  foot  across,  with  a  hole  in  the  top  and  a  draft 
in  the  side  near  the  bottom.  The  Chinese  burn  coal-balls 
in  it.  These  coal-balls  are  made  of  coal  and  clay.  They 
take  the  coal  in  big  hunks  and  pound  it  into  a  fine  dust. 
Then  they  put  in  about  as  much  dirt  as  there  is  coal-dust 
and  mix  the  two  together  with  water.  They  roll  the 
mixture  up  into  little  balls  and  let  them  dry,  and  there  is 
your  coal.  They  put  the  balls  in  the  fire.  The  coal  part 
of  them  burns  and  the  clay  becomes  ashes.  The  Chinese 
say  they  have  to  do  this  because  the  coal  is  so  hard  that  it 
won't  burn  unless  it  is  broken  up  first. 

These  Chinese  stoves  have  no  pipes  at  all,  and  all  the 
gas  in  the  coal  just  goes  off  into  the  room.  They  are 
supposed  to  be  left  outside  the  house  until  the  gas  is 
burned  out  of  the  coal,  but  people  who  don't  know  any- 
thing about  them  don't  do  that,  and  the  result  is  that  they 
"  wake  up  in  the  morning  dead,"  as  Pat  would  say. 
Torek's  death  will  be  a  warning,  no  doubt,  and  there  will 
be  fewer  chances  taken  with  the  stoves  in  future.     The 


168  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

American  camp  has  already  tabooed  them,  anB  won't  have 
one  near.     That's  where  they  are  wise. 

Well,  to-morrow  is  Thanksgiving  Day.  I  hope  you 
will  have  a  fine  day  and  a  big  turkey,  and  that  each  of  you 
eats  an  extra  portion  for  me.  I  suppose  you  will  be  at 
home  with  Mother  and  Father.     I  hope  so,  anyway. 

Peking,  Thursday,  November  29,  Thanksgiving  Day 
at  home — here,  the  eighth  day  of  the  seventh  moon 
of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of  Kuang  Hsu, 
H.  I.  M. 

Thanksgiving  Day  has  come  and  gone,  and  while  I 
didn't  feed  on  turkey  I  had  a  pretty  fair  day  of  it  all 
around.  As  I  told  you  some  time  ago,  all  the  Americans 
were  invited  to  see  Angus  Hume  in  the  afternoon.  I  went 
up  there  about  3  o'clock  and  found  some  forty  or  fifty 
of  us  there.  The  Rev.  Dr.  W.  was  on  hand,  with  a  ser- 
mon a  mile  long,  and  he  got  it  off  in  spite  of  everything. 
He  was  impressed  with  the  fact  that  this  was  the  last 
Thanksgiving  Day  of  the  century  and  so  he  took  occasion 
to  review  everything  that  had  happened  during  the  last 
hundred  years  and  give  thanks  for  it.  He  devoted  about 
four  minutes  to  giving  thanks  for  the  deliverance  of  the 
people  in  the  siege,  and  over  an  hour  to  thanks  for  the 
telephone,  the  telegraph,  the  steam  engine,  the  latest 
corn  cure,  Fellows'  Hypophosphates,  Pears'  soap,  crino- 
line, and  a  few  other  things.  I  could  not  help  noticing 
the  fact  that  in  the  middle  of  his  sermon  the  hymn  book 
on  my  lap  opened  at  hymn  No.  10  and  the  first  line  read — 
*'  Through  the  weary  wastes  we  wander."  I  think  it 
was  the  first  chance  the  Rev.  Doctor  had  had  at  a  white 
audience  for  some  time  and  he  made  the  best  use  of  his 
opportunity  and  occupied  their  time  as  long  as  possible. 
After  he  had  finished,  a  seven-year-old  son  of  the  Rev. 
Dr.  T.  recited  "A  Turkey's  Soliloquv,"  and_  a  lot, 
of  hymns  were  sung  and  then  a  lot  of  patriotic  airs. 
After  that  there  was  a  little  lunch.  I  did  not  stay  to  the 
lunch  because  it  was  getting  late  and  I  had  an  invitation 
to  attend  a  dinner  at  General  Chaffee's  in  the  evening. 

The  dinner  went  off  in  pretty  good  shape.  There  were 
twenty-seven,    all   told,    at   the   table.      They   were   all 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  169 

^American  officers,  and  we  had  a  pretty  jolly  time.  We 
drank  toasts  to  the  absent  wives  and  daughters,  and  the 
best  girls,  and  told  stories  and  smoked  after  we  had 
finished  the  dinner,  which  was  a  good  one.  It  is  pretty 
near  midnight,  now,  and  I  have  just  come  from  there, 
and  am  writing  this  letter  before  I  go  to  bed. 

Peking,  Friday,  November  30,  being  the  ninth  day  of 
the  tenth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

There  is  a  mighty  little  to  write  about  again,  and  I 
guess  I'll  have  to  fall  back  on  my  old  friends,  the  Chinese, 
for  the  subject  of  this  letter.  I  have  heard  two  pretty 
fair  Chinese  superstitions  that  may  interest  you. 

The  Chinese  mothers  believe  that  the  greatest  blessing 
they  can  ever  enjoy  is  a  son.  They  believe  that  the  gods 
love  the  little  boys,  and  that  they  love  them  so  much  that 
occasionally  they  come  down  and  grab  them  and  take 
them  off  to  the  spirit  land.  One  of  the  commonest  sights 
here  is  a  Chinese  boy  with  big  ear-rings,  dressed  up 
exactly  like  a  girl.  The  foolish  mother  pierces  the  boy 
baby's  ears  and  puts  in  huge  ear-rings  and  dresses  him 
in  girl's  clothes,  so  that  when  the  gods  come  down  in 
search  of  the  boys  they  won't  recognize  the  sex  of  the 
infants  and  will  pass  them  all  by  as  girls. 

Now  for  the  other  story.  Peking  is  the  greatest  city 
for  crows  that  I  have  ever  seen.  There  are  millions  of 
them.  They  are  not  afraid  of  human  beings,  like  the 
crows  in  America,  and  they  hop  around  the  ground  at 
your  feet.  The  reason  for  this  is  that  they  are  regarded 
as  more  or  less  sacred  by  the  people.  Strangely  enough, 
every  night  they  go  to  the  Forbidden  City.  The  flight 
starts  in  about  dusk,  and  for  an  hour  the  very  air  is  black 
with  them,  all  flying  toward  the  palace  of  the  royal  family. 
The  reason  for  this  is  not  apparent,  unless  it  is  that  they 
are  not  interfered  with  there.  When  they  are  all  in,  the 
buildings  and  grounds  of  the  Forbidden  City  are  literally 
crowded  with  them,  and  they  stay  there  until  the  next 
morning. 

No  Chinaman  except  of  the  official  class  is  permitted 
even  to  enter  the  Forbidden  City.    The  Emperor  of  China 


170  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

is  looked  upon  by  the  people  as  the  real  Son  of  Heaven, 
Brother  of  the  Moon,  and  Roommate  of  the  Stars,  sent 
down  here  to  rule  over  them.  No  Chinaman,  unless  he 
be  of  the  official  class,  is  ever  permitted  to  look  upon  his 
Imperial  Majesty,  and  a  sight  of  him  is  a  sight  of  heaven 
itself.  As  he  can't  be  seen  by  a  Chinaman  during  life, 
it  is  of  course  natural  that  there  should  be  a  promise  held 
out  for  a  more  or  less  intimate  acquaintance  with  him 
after  death.  Many  Chinamen  believe  that  when  one  of 
them  dies  his  spirit  enters  the  body  of  a  crow  if  he  has 
been  a  good  Chinaman,  and  thereafter  he  flutters  around 
Peking  at  will,  going  in  and  out  of  the  wonderful  For- 
bidden City  at  pleasure  and  being  permitted  nightly  to 
sleep  in  the  same  square  with  the  Emperor,  and  also  to 
feast  his  eyes  upon  the  august  personage  of  His  Majesty, 
This  is  one  of  the  greatest  rewards  for  being  good.  It  is 
not  a  bad  idea,  is  it  ? 

Well,  those  are  the  stories.  I  have  nothing  to  tell 
you  of  my  own  movements  to-day,  because  they 
have  been  just  the  same  as  they  are  every  otjier  day 
when  nothing  of  particular  interest  has  happened.  I 
am  getting  mighty  hungry  for  letters  from  home,  and  I 
hear  that  there  is  a  mail  from  the  States  on  the  way  up 
from  Taku  now,  so  I'll  possess  my  soul  in  patience. 

Saturday,  December  i,  1900,  being  the  tenth  day  of 
the  tenth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
H.  I.  M.   Kuang  Hsu. 

Here  is  the  end  of  a  week  and  the  beginning  of  a 
month — the  last  month  of  the  old  century.  Little  did 
either  of  us  think,  a  year  ago,  that  the  new  century  would 
come  in  with  me  in  China.  I  remember  very  well  a  year 
ago,  New  Year's  at  midnight,  sitting  in  Perry's  with 
E.  R.,  watching  the  crowd  come  in  after  the  trip  down 
to  old  Trinity  to  hear  the  chimes.  Then  I  went  home 
and  told  you  about  them.  It's  the  way  of  the  world, 
though.  This  year  New  Year's,  unless  these  blamed 
Ministers  get  a  move  on  them  pretty  quickly,  I'll  still  be 
in  Peking  cussin',  I  suppose,  at  the  eternal  slowness  of 
things  and — homesick?     Great  Scott! 

There's  this  consolation,  I'm  only  one  of  a  great  many 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  171 

thousand  who  won't  spend  the  first  day  of  the  New  Year 
with  their  famihes.  There  are  more  than  35,000  of  us 
right  here  in  Peking.  I  suppose  we'll  have  an  awful  job 
celebrating  New  Year's  here,  too.  Think  of  it;  first 
comes  January  i,  that's  our  New  Year.  Next  comes 
January  13,  that's  the  Russian  New  Year;  and  the  effect 
of  that  will  hardly  have  worn  off  when  February  will  be 
here,  and  about  the  middle  of  that  month  is  the  Chinese 
New  Year.  If  that  isn't  a  job  in  New  Year's  celebra- 
tion, I  don't  know  what  is.  I'm  afraid  I'll  get  so  mixed 
up  in  my  calendars  that  I  won't  know  where  I  am  at 
before  I  get  through.  I  guess  I'll  have  to  be  careful  and 
not  take  any  chances,  so  that  I  can  keep  track  of  myself. 

Of  course,  it  will  be  after  New  Year  when  you  get  this 
letter,  so  I  can't  even  send  you  a  New  Year's  card. 
However,  I  won't  grieve,  for  if  I  had  thought  of  it  I 
would  not  have  been  able  to  get  any,  here,  and  so  couldn't 
send  you  one.  I  said  "  Happy  New  Year  "  to  you  in  one 
of  the  letters  I  wrote  early  in  November,  but  I  guess  it 
won't  do  any  harm  to  say  it  over  again  in  this  one.  That 
your  new  year  may  be  the  happiest  year  that  you  have 
ever  had  in  all  your  life,  is  the  sincere  wish  of  the  one 
who  loves  you  best  of  all.  May  health,  happiness,  and 
■prosperity  be  your  lot,  and  the  lot  of  the  babies.  God 
bless  them ! 

I  was  up  around  the  various  Legations  to-day,  but 
mighty  little  was  doing.  There  really  wasn't  anything 
worth  cabling,  so  to-night  I  am  taking  a  sort  of  a  night 
off.  I've  a  lot  of  mail  stuff  to  get  ready,  though,  and 
I'll  go  to  work  on  that  as  soon  as  I  finish  this  letter.  I 
think  I'll  have  to  let  to-day's  letter  go  without  telling  you 
any  more  about  the  Chinese.  I'm  afraid  I've  told  you  so 
much  already  that  it  is  becoming  a  bore  to  you,  but  I 
haven't  hedrd  any  growling  about  it  yet, 

I  couldn't  resist  the  temptation,  to-day,  to  buy  a  couple 
of  Chinese  josses  that  I  saw  in  the  street  on  the  way  home. 
They  are  made  of  copper  and  are  plated  with  fired  gilt 
that  makes  them  look  exactly  like  gold.  They  are  just 
about  an  inch  and  a  half  high  and  are  the  cutest  little  gods 
that  I  have  seen  out  here.  I  bought  the  pair  for  $1.00, 
Mex. — 50  cents  of  our  money — and  I  have  packed  them 


172  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

away  in  my  trunk,  along  with  other  trinkets  that  I  will 
bring  home  and  that  I  hope  will  help  to  furnish  mantels 
or  something  else.  With  my  bronzes  I  am  getting  quite 
a  collection  of  things,  none  of  them  very  valuable,  but  all 
of  them  pretty  and  all  from  Peking,  and  therefore  of 
historical  interest.  They  are  all  for  you,  of  course,  and  I 
think  you  will  like  them — most  of  them,  at  any  rate. 

Well,  here's  luck  to  you.  Kiss  and  hug  the  babies  for 
me.  Tell  them  their  pop  thinks  of  them  a  great  deal, 
and  hopes  they  are  doing  everything  in  the  world  to 
make  their  mamma  happy.  Out  here  in  China  that's  all 
the  little  boys  and  girls  think  of  doing.  They  start  in 
when  they  are  wee  small  things  and  they  keep  it  up  all 
their  lives,  just  trying  to  make  mother  and  father  happy. 

Peking,  Sunday,  December  2,  being  the  eleventh  day 
of  the  seventh  moon  of  the  28th  year  of  the  reign 
of  Kuang  Hsu,  H.  I.  M. 

Sunday  again,  but  I  didn't  go  to  church.  Fact  is,  that 
I've  seen  about  everything  in  the  way  of  meeting-houses 
in  China  except  churches.  We  have  all  the  fittings  here 
for  churches — preachers,  missionary  exhibits,  and  even 
congregations — but  the  only  things  in  the  line  of  religious 
meeting-houses  I've  run  across  have  been  those  patronized 
by  the  Buddhists  and  the  heathen,  full  of  brass,  copper, 
and  mud  josses,  and,  if  the  truth  must  be  known,  I 
haven't  any  appetite  to  worship  any  joss  of  that  character. 

I  have  told  you  about  most  of  these  places  that  I  have 
visited,  so  I  won't  say  anything  more  about  them  here. 
Being  Sunday,  I  gave  my  horse  a  rest,  to-day,  and  worked 
some  of  the  'ricksha  men  in  his  place.  'Ricksha  riding 
in  Peking  is  not  what  it  is  cracked  up  to  be,  and  is  no- 
where near  as  pleasant  as  in  the  other  places  where  I 
have  been.  The  reason  is  that  Peking  pavements  are 
probably  as  bad  as  any  in  the  world.  Most  of  them  were 
laid  in  the  neighborhood  of  300  years  ago,  and  they  haven't 
been  repaired  any  to  speak  of  since  they  were  laid.  The 
road  from  my  abiding-place  in  the  Temple  of  Agriculture 
to  Legation  Street,  which  is  just  inside  the  wall  of  the 
Tartar  City  and  just  outside  the  wall  of  the  Imperial 
City,  was  built  fully  that  long  ago.     It  is  as  full  of  holes 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  173 

as  a  nutmeg-grater  and  a  ride  over  it  in  a  'ricksha  stirs 
your  very  liver.  It's  a  bumpity-bump-bump  all  the  way, 
and  when  you  get  to  the  end  of  your  journey  you  feel  as  if 
you  had  been  in  one  of  those  jumpers  they  use  in  making 
milk  shakes.  Then,  when  you  are  riding,  there  is  con- 
stantly with  you,  too,  a  fear  that  the  very  next  hole  you 
strike  will  either  bounce  you  out,  or  be  the  cause  of  up- 
setting you,  and  you  will  land  on  the  ground  anyway. 

I  had  an  experience  of  that  kind  to-day,  wherein  was 
shown  another  trait  of  the  Chinaman — but  it  was  not  on 
the  stone  pavement  that  I  was  dropped.  I  was  going 
from  the  Legation  to  the  palace  of  the  Rev.  Dr.  T.,  of 
the  American  Board  of  Missions,  to  get  a  note  that  I 
understood  a  Chinaman  had  left  there  for  me.  The  road 
to  T.'s  is  an  abomination.  It  is  three  inches  deep 
in  dust  and  I  should  not  have  taken  a  'ricksha  at  all,  but 
I  was  tired  and  didn't  like  walking,  so  I  thought  I'd  try 
it.  We  got  along  all  right  for  about  three  blocks,  the 
man  pulling  away  like  a  good  fellow.  Then  we  began 
to  strike  hollows  and  hillocks  in  the  street  and  about  the 
fourth  hollow  the  old  two-wheeler  began  tipping.  It  got 
half  over  before  I  realized  what  was  happening.  Then  I 
swung  myself  around  as  quickly  as  I  could  and  landed  on 
my  feet  all  right  when  the  fall  came.  I  didn't  hurt  my- 
self in  the  least,  but  I  did  tear  my  glove. 

The  moment  the  'ricksha  went  over  the  coolie  began 
yelling  as  if  he  was  killed.  He  dropped  flat  on  the 
ground  and  moaned  and  groaned  in  a  manner  simply 
awful  to  listen  to.  I  knew  he  wasn't  hurt  and  I  at  once 
jumped  to  the  conclusion  that  it  was  some  sort  of  a 
scheme  to  extort  money  from  me.  I  just  stood  there  by 
the  side  of  the  'ricksha,  waiting  to  see  what  would 
happen,  and  in  about  a  minute  I  caught  the  coolie  looking 
at  me  out  of  the  corner  of  his  eyes.  It  was  such  a 
comical  sight,  taken  in  connection  with  his  groaning  and 
his  apparent  attempt  to  show  that  he  was  seriously  in- 
jured, that  I  just  roared  with  laughter,  whereat  he 
jumped  up,  lifted  the  overturned  'ricksha  and  motioned 
me  to  get  in.  But  I  had  had  enough  and  determined  to 
walk  the  rest  of  the  way.  For  a  minute  or  two  I  couldn't 
make  out  the  fellow's  conduct  at  all,  and  then  it  struck 


174  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

me.  He  knew  he  deserved  punishment  for  upsetting  me 
and  he  was  afraid  I  was  going  to  beat  him  as  he  deserved, 
so  he  yelled  as  if  he  had  been  killed  to  save  himself  the 
beating.  I  tell  you  the  Chinamen  are  a  very  cute  lot  of 
people  and  what  they  don't  think  of,  when  an  emergency 
arises,  is  not  worth  thinking.  I  walked  to  T.'s  and 
walked  back,  and  nearly  choked  with  the  dust;  but  even 
that  was  better  than  being  tumbled,  so  I  put  up  with  it, 
but  I  did  wish  that  I  had  not  been  so  compassionate  on 
the  horse.     So  endeth  the  lesson  of  the  day. 

A  mail  goes  off  to-morrow,  and  this  letter  will 
probably  be  the  last  of  this  bunch  I  am  sending  you. 
Don't  be  alarmed  if  there  is  some  greater  irregularity  in 
the  receipt  of  the  letters  after  this,  for  some  little  time, 
because  the  river  is  frozen  over  and  the  bay  is  liable  to 
freeze  at  any  time.  When  that  happens  it  won't  be 
possible  for  the  steamships  to  come  up  to  take  the  mail. 
Arrangements  have  been  made  to  send  it  out  overland  by 
way  of  Shanghai,  and  also  to  the  north  by  the  way  of 
Shanhaikwan,  which  is  the  end  of  the  Great  Wall.  The 
railroad  is  not  running  there,  yet,  and  there  are  likely  to 
be  all  sorts  of  delays  until  it,  gets  started.  You  will  sec 
that  I  am  all  right  by  the  telegrams  "  from  our  own  cor- 
respondent "  that  will  appear  in  The  Sun  every  day  or  so, 
at  least. 

Peking,  Monday,  December  3,  1900,  or  the  Twelfth 
day  of  the  Tenth  Moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the 
reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

The  mail  went  off  this  morning  and  with  it,  if  my 
reckoning  is  correct,  eight  letters  to  you.  As  I  said  in 
my  last  letter  in  that  bunch,  it  is  a  question  whether  the 
next  batch,  of  which  this  is  the  first,  will  reach  you  with- 
out considerable  delay.  We  are  pretty  well  frozen  up 
here  now.  The  thermometer  monkeys  around  zero  a 
good  deal  of  the  time,  and  we  have  occasional  flurries  of 
snow.  The  first  good  snow-storm  was  this  morning, 
when  we  got  about  two  inches.  The  compensating 
feature  of  it  is  that  it  will  probably  lay  the  dust,  though 
it  is  flakey,  and,  with  the  wind  blowing  as  it  is,  the  snow 
is  more  likely  to  mix  up  with  the  dust  and  so  fill  the  air 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  175 

full  of  mud  instead  of  either  dust  or  snow.  Oh,  I  tell 
you  this  is  a  fine  country  to  live  in — nit ! 

There  was  to  have  been  a  meeting  of  the  Ministers  to- 
day. Mr.  Conger,  our  Minister,  sent  out  the  call  for  it 
yesterday.  All  the  Ministers  were  ready  except  the 
Frenchman,  who  sent  a  plaintive  appeal  to  be  let  off. 
He  said  he  had  a  most  important  engagement  and  that 
it  was  impossible  for  him  to  break  it ;  that  it  would  be  a 
very  great  favor  if  the  meeting  were  postponed  until  to- 
morrow. Of  course  the  other  Ministers  agreed  to  oblige 
him.  To-day  I  learn  that  his  *'  most  important  engage- 
ment "  is  to  take  four  friends  out  to  the  Summer  Palace 
of  the  Dowager  and  feed  them  a  luncheon. 

As  they  say  in  New  York,  wouldn't  that  jar  you? 
Wouldn't  it  make  you  mad?  Here  the  whole  world  is 
waiting  for  the  Ministers  to  act.  China  is  in  a  most 
desperate  condition.  Business  is  going  completely  to  pot. 
Hundreds  of  thousands  of  dollars  are  being  lost  daily, 
thousands  of  soldiers  are  being  kept  here,  and  all  that, 
and  this  Minister  delays  things  because  he  wants  to  en- 
tertain some  of  his  cronies  at  a  lunch  at  the  Summer 
Palace !  I  don't  believe  that  such  a  thing  was  ever 
heard  of  before  in  the  world,  and  it  has  done  more  than 
anything  else  to  disgust  me  with  the  whole  business.  I 
sent  out  a  dispatch  to-night  in  which  I  simply  stated  the 
facts  in  a  few  words,  and  I  certainly  hope  that  our  folks 
will  realize  what  it  means  and  will  make  a  big  kick  about 
it.  It  would  not  be  so  bad  if  the  lunch  he  was  giving 
had  been  an  official  affair,  arranged  for  beforehand  and 
hard  to  get  out  of,  but  it  is  not.  The  guests  are  some 
of  his  Legation  people  to  whom  he  can  give  a  lunch  any 
day.  From  whatever  point  the  matter  is  looked  at  it  is 
certainly  inexcusable  conduct  on  his  part,  and  he  deserves 
to  be  exposed  and  jumped  on  by  his  Government  and  by 
everybody  else.  If  I  knew  him  well  enough  I  would  go 
and  have  a  row  with  him  myself.  As  you  may  well 
imagine,  I  am  as  anxious  to  get  this  matter  over  with 
and  settled  up,  so  I  can  start  for  home,  as  anybody 
can  be. 

I  have  another  rival  here  now  in  the  person  of  a  Capt. 
B.^    a    new    correspondent    of    the    Associated    Press, 


176  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

I  don't  remember  whether  I  told  you  or  not,  t)ut  my 
rivals  haven't  been  having  a  very  pleasant  time  from  all 
that  I  hear.  There  are  two  associations  fighting  The 
Sim,  one  is  the  A.  P.  and  the  other  the  English  concern 
called  Reuters'.  The  last  time  I  saw  Reuters's  man  he 
showed  me  a  dispatch  from  his  home  office,  saying: 
"  Your  service  is  rotten ;  it  is  absolutely  necessary  that 
you  should  brace  up."  Of  course,  that  pleased  me 
immensely,  though  I  didn't  tell  him  so.  As  for  the 
A.  P.,  when  I  came  here  its  man  was  E.  of  San  Fran- 
cisco. He  went  home  and  his  place  was  taken  by  a 
young  man,  who  worked  here  for  several  weeks  and  then 
got  a  dispatch  saying:  "You  are  being  beaten  daily  on 
good  stories."  I  condoled  with  him  and  a  day  or  two 
later  he  was  ordered  home.  Now  B.  has  come  to 
take  his  place.  I  don't  know  yet  what  sort  of  a  citizen  he 
is,  but  I  imagine  he  must  be  rather  an  expensive  luxury. 
He  showed  me  his  first  dispatch,  and  it  started  off — 
"  Colonel  Count  von  Torek  Walmerding,  who  commanded 
the  German  column  to  Kalgan,  etc."  That  is,  about 
twelve  words  telling  who  Torek  was.  My  dispatch  said : 
"Torek  dead."  With  cable  tolls  at  $2  or  $3  a  word, 
you  can  see  how  expensive  he  is.  "  Torek  dead  "  told  all 
the  news.  The  cable  man  in  the  office  of  course  knew 
who  Torek  was  and  he  put  that  in  the  dispatch.  It  wasn't 
necessary  for  me  to  spend  $30  or  $40  in  explanation. 
Altogether,  I  guess  I  haven't  anything  to  fear  from  our 
friend  B.     However,  you  never  can  tell. 

I  don't  believe,  though,  that  you  are  interested  in  these 
things,  so  I'll  cut  them  short.  I  have  told  you  about 
them  because  there  isn't  anything  else  in  this  land  to-day 
to  write  about,  unless  it  is  how  I  miss  you  and  I've  told 
you  that  so  many  times  in  the  last  four  months  that  even 
that  must  be  a  bore  to  you. 

Peking,  Tuesday,  December  4,  1900,  being  the  Thir- 
teenth day  of  the  Tenth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of 
the  reign  of  Kuang  Hsu,  H.  I.  M. 
The  Ministers'  meeting,  postponed  to  enable  the  French 
Minister   to   entertain    four   friends   at   luncheon   at   the 
Summer  Palace,  took  place  to-day,  and  I  am  informed 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  177 

that  "  substantial  progress "  was  made.  "  Substantial 
progress  "  is  becoming  a  good  deal  of  a  chestnut  to  me, 
but  this  time  I  understand  that  it  is  really  true  and  that 
at  the  end  of  the  meeting  the  Ministers  were  a  good  deal 
more  in  accord  in  their  ideas  than  they  had  been  at  any 
time  before.  The  delay  now  is  due,  in  large  part,  to  the 
United  States,  and  I  flatter  myself  that  my  dispatches 
may  possibly  have  had  some  effect. 

You  will  recall  that  some  time  ago,  when  the  punish- 
ment of  the  officials  who  were  responsible  for  the  Boxer 
uprising  was  about  all  that  was  being  talked  about,  I 
called  attention  to  the  fact  that  the  Ministers  were  de- 
manding what  was  impossible  when  they  demanded  that 
the  Dowager  and  the  Emperor  should  cut  off  the  head  of 
Tung  Fu  Hsien.  This  was  because  Tung  Fu  Hsien  is 
the  Generalissimo  of  the  Qiinese  army  and  his  troops 
surround  the  Dowager,  the  Emperor,  and  the  Court. 
The  whole  business  was,  and  is,  absolutely  within  his 
power,  and  if  anybody's  head  is  to  be  cut  off,  he  is  the 
man  whom  the  Dowager  must  depend  upon  to  do  the 
cutting.  To  include  in  the  demands  a  demand  for  his 
head  is  the  same  as  telling  the  Dowager  that  she  must 
make  Tung  Fu  Hsien  cut  off  his  own  head,  and  while, 
in  China,  orders  to  commit  suicide  are  usually  obeyed, 
they  are  not  when  the  person  invited  to  do  it  has  the 
whiphand. 

In  my  dispatch,  you  will  remember,  I  did  some  pretty 
stiff  kicking,  though  couched  in  diplomatic  terms,  and' 
now  our  Government  has  taken  exactly  the  view  that  I 
took,  and  has  practically  declined  to  demand  the  im- 
possible of  China.  While  it  has  temporarily  delayed  mat- 
ters, it  has  unquestionably  made  for  the  more  rapid 
solution  of  the  difficulty  in  the  end,  for  the  fewer  im- 
possible things  that  are  demanded  of  China,  the  quicker 
she  can  be  made  to  do  the  possible  ones,  and  the  quicker 
this  whole  problem  will  be  solved.  That's  the  way  I 
look  at  it,  and  that,  it  seems  now,  is  the  way  our  Govern- 
ment looks  at  it.  If  my  dispatches  have  in  the  least 
helped  along  a  public  opinion  that  has  had  its  influence 
on  the  Government,  I  can  tell  you  I  am  mighty  glad,  and 
feel  that  a  real  service  has  been  done.     The  wisdom  of 


178  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

the  policy  and  the  willingness  of  the  Chinese  Government 
to  comply  with  the  demands  of  the  powers,  so  far  as  it 
is  possible  to  do  so,  are  shown  in  an  edict  which  got  here 
late  this  afternoon.  It  announces  that  Tung  Fu  Hsien 
has  been  stripped  of  all  of  his  military  honors,  and  has 
been  sent  to  the  Province  of  Kansu  at  the  head  of  5,000 
troops  to  suppress  an  incipient  rebellion  there  among  the 
Mohammedans.  The  importance  of  this  lies  in  the  fact 
that  if  it  is  carried  out  and  Tung  Fu  Hsien  goes  to  Kansu, 
he  no  longer  has  the  Court  in  his  control,  and  the 
Dowager  and  the  Emperor  can  return  to  Peking  if  they 
want  to.  At  the  same  time  Tung  Fu  Hsien,  who  has  had 
an  evil  influence  upon  the  Court,  naturally  is  permanently 
removed  and  can  no  longer  exercise  that  influence.  You 
see  that  things  are  just  naturally  working  themselves 
out  in  pretty  fair  shape,  and  the  situation  is  clearing  up 
naturally.  I  certainly  hope  that  it  will  continue  to  do 
so. 

I  don't  know  whether  all  these  things  interest  you,  but 
they  ought  to,  for  the  reason  that  they  all  have  a  most 
important  bearing  on  the  time  when  I  shall  be  able  to 
shake  the  dust  of  China  from  my  shoes  and  start  gayly 
homeward. 

In  the  mail  that  went  off  yesterday  I  sent  off  a  small 
batch  of  short  Chinese  stories,  modeled  somewhat  after 
the  "  Convention  Notes  "  I  wrote  during  National  Con- 
ventions. I  have  already  told  most  of  them  to  you  in 
letters  I  have  written.  My  idea  is  to  send  off  a  batch  by 
every  mail  and  I  think  that  when  I  get  back,  by  a  reason- 
able amount  of  editing  and  rewriting,  I  shall  be  able  to 
make  further  use  of  them. 

Peking,  Wednesday,  December  5,  being  the  fourteenth 

day  of  the  tenth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the 

reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

Speaking  of  cold  weather,  hey?     Well,  if  you  want  a 

most  superior  article  in  the  line  of  cold  weather,  just  come 

here  to  Peking.     I  suppose  that  by  the  time  you  get  this 

letter  you  will  have  had  something  in  the  line  of  weather 

yourself,  but  if  you  have  come  anywhere  near  the  sample 

that  is  being  put  up  in  Peking,  I'm  sorry  for  you.     We 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  179 

are  literally  frozen  up,  here,  and  the  dust  is  blowing  in 
clouds  sufficient  to  choke  you.  Nevertheless  we  are  not 
uncomfortable,  except  for  the  dust.  If  you  could  see  us 
you  would  understand  why.  For  instance,  when  I  go  out 
I  wear  the  blanket-lined  canvas  overcoat  I  bought  at  the 
Government  Stores  in  San  Francisco  before  I  sailed.  It 
comes  very  nearly  down  to  my  heels.  I  don't  remember 
whether  I  told  you  about  it  or  not.  It  is  made  of  canvas 
outside,  and  is  lined  inside,  sleeves  and  all,  with  a  great 
army  blanket — the  heaviest  woolen  blanket  made.  It  has 
a  collar  that  reaches  to  the  top  of  the  head,  covering  the 
ears,  and  the  face  to  the  eyes. 

Then  with  this  coat  I  have  a  fur  cap,  not  very  pretty,  it 
is  true,  but  warm  as  toast.  It  has  flaps  that  come  down 
over  the  ears  and  down  the  back  of  the  neck,  and  a  visor 
that  comes  over  the  forehead  to  the  eyes,  so  that  abso- 
lutely all  of  me  that  is  not  covered  is  the  eyes.  With  the 
cap  and  coat  I  wear  a  pair  of  huge  muskrat-fur  gaunt- 
lets that  are  lined  with  red  flannel,  and  the  cuffs  come 
away  above  the  wrists.  Then,  with  a  pair  of  heavy 
cloth  arctics,  lined  with  red  flannel,  on  my  feet,  I  am  in 
condition  to  stand  any  sort  of  weather  that  the  Chinese 
weather  god  chooses  to  send.  So  rigged  out  I  look  as  if 
I  weighed  something  under  a  ton,  and  I  must  confess  I 
feel  about  the  same  way,  for  if  there  is  one  merit  that  the 
outfit  lacks  it  is  lightness.  You  can't  very  well  expect 
lightness  with  the  warmth,  however,  so  there  is  really 
nothing  to  complain  of. 

The  cold,  of  course,  has  frozen  up  everything.  I 
haven't  heard  yet  from  down  the  river,  so  I  do  not  know 
how  the  mail  is  getting  out,  but  I  know  that  our  army  is 
making  arrangements  to  dispatch  mails  through  Shan- 
haikwan,  which,  although  it  is  north  of  here,  does  not 
freeze  up  in  the  Winter.  The  process  will  be  a  little  bit 
slow,  very  likely,  for  the  reason  that  the  railroad  up  there 
has  been  destroyed,  and  there  are  thirty-eight  miles  of  it, 
I  have  to-day  heard,  that  are  still  unrepaired,  so  it  will  be 
necessary  to  carry  the  mail  that  distance  in  wagons  or  on 
horseback.  Any  way,  however,  will  suit  me,  just  so  I 
succeed  in  getting  letters  out  and  in  receiving  them. 


180  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

Peking,  Thursday,  December  6,  being  the  fifteenth 
day  of  the  tenth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign 
of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

This  is  the  anniversary  of  the  death  of  Confucius,  the 
patron  saint  of  China,  the  man  who  founded  the  national 
reHgion  of  China.  He  died  490  years  before  Christ  was 
born,  and  his  reUgion  is  that  much  older  than  ours.  In 
China  to-day  it  is  also  the  day  of  the  Fetes  of  Ha  Tuen, 
the  God  of  Water;  of  the  God  of  Smallpox,  and  of  the 
God  and  Goddess  of  the  Bedstead.  Usually  these  are 
great  celebration  days  in  China,  but  this  year,  in  the 
vicinity  of  Peking,  at  least,  you  would  never  suspect  that 
they  were  different  from  any  other  day.  The  Chinese 
are  not  doing  much  celebrating  of  any  kind  at  the  present 
time,  and  I  don't  think  they  are  to  be  blamed  for  it.  It 
is  hard  to  celebrate  when  you  are  in  the  midst"  of  desola- 
tion and  human  misery,  and  the  Chinese  are  certainly  in 
the  midst  of  such  conditions.  They  are  absolutely  sur- 
rounded by  them. 

However,  in  this  busy  world  there  is  no  time  to  moral- 
ize. What  is,  is,  and  there  is  an  end  to  it.  It  is  better 
to  hope  for  the  future  than  it  is  to  grieve  for  the  past, 
and  in  that,  I  think,  lies  the  secret  of  human  happiness, 
I'm  hoping  for  the  future.  I  hope  you  are  too.  The 
more  I  see  of  the  world  and  of  the  misery,  the  misfortune, 
and  the  consequent  vmhappiness  of  the  greater  number  of 
the  people  in  it,  the  more  I  feel  thankful  that  your  lot 
and  my  lot  and  the  lot  of  our  relations  and  friends  have 
hcon  cast  in  such  pleasant  places.  To  fully  appreciate 
America  one  must  see  China.  To  fully  appreciate  the 
beauties  and  the  blessings  of  our  home  life,  one  must  see 
the  best  that  exists  elsewhere,  and  compare  them,  and  the 
worst  that  exists  elsewhere,  and  compare  them.  I  can 
tell  you  that  the  comparison  makes  one  love  his  own 
home  and  his  own  country  more. 

Shanghai  is  spoken  of  as  The  City  of  the  East.  There 
I  saw  the  best.  In  Peking  I  have  seen  the  worst ;  or,  if 
not  the  worst,  what  at  least  is  so  far  worse  than  anything 
that  exists  in  America  that  all  comparison  ceases.  It  is 
impossible   to   compare  them.      I   said   that   moralizing 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  181 

didn't  pay,  and  I  have  gone  on  and  moralized  to  the 
extent  of  a  page  and  more. 

Our  spell  of  weather  is  continuing  here.  It  was  zero 
this  morning,  and  the  north  wind  was  blowing  in  a 
fashion  that  cut  clear  through  all  the  meat  and  clear  into 
the  bone,  but  it  was  a  dry  cold  and  not  nearly  so  bad  as 
it  is  in  New  York  when  the  weather  gets  down  to  zero. 
If  it  were  not  for  the  dust  that  flies  continually,  one  would 
not  mind  it  very  much,  for,  dressing  warmly  as  we  do, 
it  is  an  easy  matter  to  keep  the  cold  out.  I  count  among 
my  treasures  here  the  two  sweaters  I  purchased  the  day 
that  you  and  I  went  in  from  Plainfield  to  outfit  me  for  this 
trip.  I  am  only  sorry  I  did  not  buy  half  a  dozen  of  them 
instead  of  two.  They  fit  closely  everywhere  and  they 
keep  the  heat  of  the  body  in  and  the  cold  out  as  no  over- 
coat can  possibly  do.  I  wear  one  all  the  time,  now, 
except  at  dinner,  and  I'd  wear  them  there,  only  everybody 
else  puts  on  a  white  shirt  and  one  has  to  be  in  the  swim, 
you  know. 

Another  mail  is  expected  up  here  Saturday  night,  and 
I'm  looking  for  another  batch  of  letters  from  you.  The 
last  mail  disappointed  me.  I  suppose  the  letters  were 
addressed  to  Shanghai  and  they  are  traveling  around 
looking  for  me.  I  have  written  to  the  Qiartered  Bank, 
down  there,  to  tell  them  to  forward  anything  that  may 
be  there  for  me.  I  told  them  that  before  I  left,  but  I 
think  they  must  have  forgotten,  so  that  a  little  jogging 
of  their  memory  won't  do  any  harm  anyway.  Until  the 
last  mail,  yours  were  the  only  letters  I  had  received  from 
New  York. 

Peking,  China,  Friday,  December  7,  1900,  being  the 
sixteenth  day  of  the  tenth  moon  of  the  26th  year 
of  the  Reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

This  has  certainly  been  a  field-day  for  me.  I  got  three 
letters  from  you  and  one  from  G.  The  letter's  were 
dated  October  7,  14,  and  20.  They  had  been  delayed 
in  reaching  me  because  of  the  stop  in  Yokohama,  where 
they  had  to  wait  for  another  steamer,  and  at  this 
season  of  the  year  steamers  from  Japan  are  not  very 
frequent.     You  can  well  imagine  how  welcome  these  let- 


182  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

ters  were,  for  I  had  not  heard  from  you  for  nearly  a 
month  and  I  was  homesick  for  letters. 

In  your  letter  of  the  19th  you  show  a  commendable 
philosophy.  I  surely  would  have  been  in  Galveston, 
had  I  been  in  the  United  States,  and  I  surely  would 
have  been  out  in  the  coal-mining  region  during  the 
coal  strikes,  and  in  such  work  there  is  little  for  me  beyond 
the  money  that  comes  in  anyway,  while  the  trip  here,  as 
Mr.  L.  told  you,  is  probably  the  greatest  investment  I 
have  ever  made.  My  life  work  is  in  my  profession.  In 
that  profession  the  great  asset  is  experience  and  knowl- 
edge, and  these  two  things  I  am  getting  and  storing 
away  for  your  future  benefit  and  that  of  the  babies,  as 
well  as  my  own. 

You  speak  of  my  not  saying  anything  about  receiving 
letters  from  you.  You  forget,  sweetheart,  that  I  hadn't 
stopped  anywhere  long  enough  when  you  received  my 
last  letter  before  you  wrote  the  one  on  the  20th  to  let  any 
of  your  letters  catch  me.  Let's  see — the  letters  you  had 
received  when  you  wrote  October  20th  were  probably 
dated  along  in  September,  and  I  had  just  about  got  to 
Shanghai.  You  see,  I  was  traveling  away  in  the  fastest 
steamer,  and  your  letters  were  traveling  just  as  fast  after 
me,  but  there  was  no  hope  of  their  catching  me  until  I 
stopped  long  enough  for  them  to  catch  up.  I  did  not 
expect  to  stay  in  Shanghai  more  than  a  day  or  two,  when 
I  was  in  Yokohama,  so  I  directed  the  bank  there  to  for- 
ward my  mail  to  Tien  Tsin.  That's  what  they  did.  I 
am  under  the  impression  that  I  told  you  in  one  of  my 
letters,  either  at  Shanghai  or  Tien  Tsin,  to  address  me 
in  the  future  care  of  American  Legation,  Peking.  If  I 
am  still  here  when  you  get  this,  do  it,  but  I  have  strong 
hopes  that  I  shall  be  away  before  that  time.  The  let- 
ters are  coming  all  right,  so  don't  worry  about  them. 
I've  learned  patience  and  I  can  assure  you  that  the 
letters  are  just  as  welcome  when  they  get  here.  They 
don't  lose  anything  in  the  journey.  G.  told  me  in 
her  letter  that  you  had  sent  her  my  letter,  written  on  the 
steamer.  That  relieves  my  mind.  I  have  been  feeling 
very  guilty  because  I  haven't  written  her  oftener  and  also 
oftener  to  mother  and  father.     But  if  you  are  letting 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  183 

them  read  my  letters  that  makes  up  for  it.  Tell  the  little 
ones  that  they  are  not  half  as  anxious  to  see  their  papa 
as  he  is  to  see  them,  bless  their  hearts. 

And  now  you  must  let  me  off  for  a  day.  I  want  to 
read  all  my  welcome  letters  over  again. 

Peking,  Saturday,  December  g,  1900,  being  the  seven- 
teenth day  of  the  tenth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of 
the  Reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

Saturday  again,  another  week  gone  and  still  in  Peking. 
The  beginning  of  the  negotiations  now  is  waiting  on  Sir 
Ernest  Satow.  Sir  Ernest  is  the  British  Minister,  and 
he  has  not  yet  been  instructed  by  his  Government  to  sign 
the  note  that  he  and  the  other  Ministers  prepared.  As  I 
have  remarked  before,  the  ways  of  diplomacy  are  past 
finding  out,  albeit  I'm  keeping  pretty  well  up  on  them 
myself  at  present.  But  here  I  am  again,  telling  you  news 
which  will  surely  be  a  month  old  before  you  get  it.  Surely 
I  must  find  something  more  interesting  to  put  in  my  let- 
ters, or  first  thing  I  know  I'll  be  getting  a  note  from  you 
telling  me  to  stop  writing. 

Let  me  see — you  ought  to  be  interested  in  the  servant 
question.  Leastwise,  when  I  left  home  that  was  more  or 
less  of  a  burning  question,  especially  at  mealtime.  What  is 
it  that  Thirty-seven-varieties-of-Shakespear  Heinz  says — 
"  'Tis  burned,  and  so  is  all  the  meat,  where  is  the  dastard 
cook  and  the  tomato  catsup  bottle  ?  "  or  words  to  that 
effect.  Chinese  cooks  are  built  on  practically  those  lines. 
Reeves  and  I  have  made  several  discoveries  about  the 
Chinese  servant  business.  Of  course  we  don't  claim  that 
they  are  original  discoveries  at  all,  but  they  were  new  to 
us  when  we  found  them  out.  One  is  that  the  Chinese 
servant  is  a  pretty  good  servant,  but  the  more  you  have 
of  him  the  less  work  is  done — not  the  less  work  is  done 
by  each  individual,  but  the  less  in  the  aggregate.  For 
example,  one  servant  will  cook,  wait  on  the  table,  wash 
dishes,  carry  water,  and  keep  your  room  clean.  Two 
servants  will  cook,  wash  dishes,  wait  on  the  table,  and 
carry  water.  Three  will  cook,  wash  dishes,  and  wait  on 
table.  Four  will  cook  and  wash  dishes.  Five  will  cook. 
We  haven't  tried  six  yet.     I  suppose  if  we  do  we  shall 


184  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

have  to  do  our  own  cooking  and  wait  on  the  China- 
men. 

Then,  there  is  another  peculiarity :  The  one  servant 
who  does  it  all  will  constantly  complain  that  the  work  is 
too  heavy  and  he  has  to  have  a  helper'.  When  you 
get  the  helper  the  complaints  are  just  doubled,  and  so  on 
up  to  the  five.  The  work  done  is  only  one-fifth  of  the 
work  done  originally  by  one,  but  the  complaints  are  five- 
fold. 

Then  another  thing:  Once  you  begin  to  accumulate 
servants  you  acquire  an  appetite  for  peanuts  that  is  sim- 
ply marvelous.  You  don't  realize  that,  and  you  probably 
don't  know  that  you  eat  them,  but,  if  the  cook's  testi- 
mony is  correct,  you  certainly  do  eat  them.  The  cook 
does  the  marketing,  and  each  night  he  reports  the  expen- 
ditures of  the  day.  Every  night  for  a  week  we  have 
noticed — peanuts,  $i.  On  investigating  the  peanut  ques- 
tion, we  found  that  peanuts  were  sold  at  the  rate  of 
twelve  for  a  cash,  which  is  one-tenth  of  a  cent.  That 
would  be  I20  for  a  cent,  1200  for  a  dime,  12,000  for  a 
dollar,  and  in  seven  days  we  had  consumed  84,000  pea- 
nuts !  Now,  don't  laugh  at  that.  It  is  a  solemn  and 
serious  fact.     We  doubted  it.     We  called  the  cook  in. 

"  Cooker,"  we  demanded,  "  how  many  peanuts  have 
you  got  in  stock  ?  " 

"  No  have  got,"  said  Cooker.     "  Master  eat  all." 

"  What  ?  "  we  demanded  in  a  breath,  "  have  we  eaten 
$7  worth  of  peanuts  in  a  week  ?  " 

"  Master  have  eat,"  said  Cooker. 

"  Cooker,"  said  I,  "  you're  a  liar." 

"Master  have  eat,"  said  Cooker,  and  he  trotted  out 
and  brought  in  his  four  assistants,  who  each  said  "  Master 
have  eat." 

Of  course  there  was  no  going  back  on  that  testimony. 
Consciously,  we  had  not  eaten  a  peanut,  so  I  say  that 
Chinese  servants  develop  unconscious  habits  in  their  em- 
ployers. 

The  day  after  this  episode  Cooker  informed  us  that  his 
grandmother  was  sick,  and  he  must  go  to  her.  That  was 
the  last  of  Cooker.  He  hasn't  been  seen  or  heard  of  since. 
The  No.  I  boy  informed  us  that  "  Cooker  no  have  got 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  185 

face.  He  no  come  back."  It  appears  that  the  announce- 
ment that  he  was  a  liar  damaged  his  face.  Now,  in  the 
States,  it  is  usually  the  fellow  who  makes  such  an  an- 
nouncement that  gets  the  damaged  face.  Here  in  China, 
though,  as  you  must  know  by  this  time,  everything  is 
topsy-turvy.  I  think  I  have  told  you  that  "  face  "  in 
China  is  the  most  important  of  all  things.  There  is  no 
single  word  in  the  English  language  that  expresses  it. 
Accuse  a  man  of  lying,  and  if  he  does  not  resent  it  ac- 
cording to  certain  prescribed  methods,  he  has  "  lost  face." 
Take  him  to  task  for  any  misconduct,  and  he  has  "  lost 
face."  If  he  permits  any  sort  of  an  indignity,  whether  de- 
served or  not,  he  has  "  lost  face,"  and  a  Chinaman  without 
"  face  "  is  looked  down  upon  by  everybody.  In  the  case 
of  servants  who  need  chastisement,  you  can  see,  it  is  a 
serious  matter. 

I  guess,  though,  I've  rambled  on  sufficiently  for  one 
day,  so  good-bye.     I'll  see  you  again  to-morrow. 

Peking,  China,  December  9,  1900,  being  the  eight- 
eenth day  of  the  tenth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of 
the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

The  first  train  got  in  from  Tien  Tsin  to-day,  and 
Peking  is  once  more  in  rail  connection  with  the  outside 
world.  It  is  true  that  Tien  Tsin  is  not  very  far  out  in 
the  outside  world,  but  it's  a  heap  sight  farther  than 
nowhere,  and  up  to  to-day  there  was  no  outside  connec- 
tion with  anywhere  except  by  army  transport  wagon. 
The  railroad  has  not  begun  to  run  regularly  yet,  and  it 
probably  won't  for  some  days,  but  the  fact  that  they  have 
succeeded  in  restoring  it  so  that  they  could  get  one  train 
over  it  shows  that  the  time  is  very  short  now  when  it  will 
be  running  as  it  used  to.  China  railroads,  you  know,  never 
were  what  the  railroads  in  the  United  States  are.  Tien 
Tsin  is  only  ninety  miles  from  Peking,  but  the  trip  is  a 
nine-hour  trip  by  rail.  New  York  is  the  same  distance 
from  Philadelphia  that  Peking  is  from  Tien  Tsin,  and 
our  trains  make  it  in  two  hours.  A  good  deal  of  differ- 
ence, isn't  there?  While  Peking  is  nine  hours'  distance 
from  Tien  Tsin,  the  railroad  revolutionizes  China.  You 
can  imagine  what  China  must  have  been  before  there  was 


186  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

any  railroad.  We  who  are  here,  of  course,  have  realized 
it,  for  we  have  had  no  railroad. 

It  may  interest  you  to  know  how  this  letter  and  all  the 
other  letters  that  I  shall  write  you  this  Winter,  until  this 
miserable  business  is  over  at  least,  will  get  to  you.  The 
new  rail  route  is  just  being  fixed  up.  Of  course  we  have 
a  post-office  here  in  the  Temple  of  Agriculture.  We  have 
a  post-master  and  clerks,  just  like  a  regular  post-office  in 
the  United  States.  The  head  clerk  is  a  youngster  from 
the  New  York  post-office  who  was  transferred  here  espe- 
cially for  the  work.  Our  letters  are  mailed  here,  and 
every  fifth  day  they  are  loaded  on  a  wagon  and  start  out  at 
5  o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  wagon  is  surrounded  by 
a  guard  of  cavalrymen,  who  never  leave  it.  Besides  the 
mail,  the  wagon  carries  food  for  the  men  and  forage  for 
the  horses.  The  outfit  makes  Ho-si-wu  by  night.  There 
is  a  guard  of  cavalrymen  there,  and  a  stop  is  made  for 
the  night.  The  cavalrymen  who  have  guarded  the  mail  so 
far  turn  in  and  sleep,  and  the  Ho-si-wu  men  stand  guard 
all  night.  At  5  o'clock  in  the  morning  a  fresh  start  is 
made,  and  the  wagon  with  the  guard  reaches  Yangtsun 
about  2  o'clock.  The  railroad  has  been  running  from 
Yangtsun  for  a  long  while.  There  the  bags  are  loaded 
on  a  train  which  is  waiting,  and  a  part  of  the  guard  climbs 
on  with  them,  and  the  train  runs  on  to  Tien  Tsin. 

While  Tien  Tsin  was  an  open  port  the  mail  was  taken 
directly  aboard  ship,  but  the  place  is  frozen  up  like 
Peking,  now,  and  the  new  route  is  away  to  the  north. 
The  bags  are  taken  to  another  post-office  which  we  have  at 
Tien  Tsin,  and  there  they  are  opened  and  each  piece  of 
mail  is  counted  to  see  that  none  has  been  lost.  The  next 
morning  at  daybreak  another  wagon  comes,  and  another 
guard  of  cavalry,  and  the  trip  north  is  begun.  It  is  sixty 
miles  to  Than-ge-han,  the  nearest  point  on  the  Russian 
railroad,  and  it  is  across  the  bleakest,  coldest  country  you 
can  imagine.  This  journey  requires  two  days,  thirty 
miles  being  a  day's  work  for  the  four-mule  team  and  the 
cavalry  horses.  The  mail  gets  to  Than-ge-han  at  dark  on 
the  second  day,  and  there  is  a  train  on  the  Russian  rail- 
road waiting  for  it.  From  this  place  to  Chang-men-soo  is 
about  sixty   miles,   and   the   Russian   railroad   uses   up 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  187 

five  hours  in  the  trip.  At  Chang-men- soo  there  is  a  dock 
and  a  guard  of  cavalrymen.  The  mail  bags  are  sealed 
and  turned  over  to  the  soldiers,  and  are  kept  there  until 
the  arrival  of  the  steamer. 

The  United  States  has  chartered  a  special  steamer  to 
carry  the  mail  from  Chang-men-soo,  which  is  the  nearest 
open  port  tO'  Shanhaikwan,  the  end  of  the  great  wall  of 
China,  to  Nagasaki  in  Japan.  The  mail  is  put  aboard  this 
steamer  when  she  arrives,  and  makes  a  five-day  trip  down 
the  Gulf  of  Pechili  to  Japan.  From  Japan  there  are  the 
regular  lines  of  steamers,  and  the  mail  goes  to  Honolulu 
and  thence  to  San  Francisco,  and  across  the  United  States 
to  Brooklyn.  You  see  it  is  a  pretty  big  job  to  get  mail 
from  the  Temple  of  Agriculture  in  Peking  to  you  in 
Brooklyn,  but  Uncle  Sam  is  doing  it  in  fine  shape,  and  all 
for  five  cents  a  letter.    I  wouldn't  want  his  job. 

There  isn't  anything  in  the  way  of  news  that  I  can  tell 
you  to-day,  except  that  Li  Hung  Chang  sent  word 
this  morning  to  General  Chafifee  to  know  if  it  would 
be  convenient  for  him  to  call  to-morrow.  Of  course  it  will 
be,  and  I  expect  to  see  him  down  here  in  the  afternoon. 
Some  people  say  that  General  Chaffee  has  been  making 
some  bad  breaks  lately,  in  the  diplomatic  way,  but  I 
haven't  said  anything  about  them  in  my  dispatches.  He 
doesn't  pretend  to  be  a  diplomat,  but  he  is  a  fighter.  He 
takes  off  his  hat  to  no  man,  and  his  heart  is  in  the  right 
place, 

Peking,  Monday,  December  lo,  being  the  nineteenth 
day  of  the  tenth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the 
reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

It  was  a  gala-day  in  camp  to-day.  His  Excellency  Li 
Hung  Chang  called  on  General  Chaffee  with  a  retinue  of 
servants.  Li  came  in  a  sedan  chair.  It  was  the  first 
time  in  his  life  that  he  had  ever  visited  the  Temple  of 
Agriculture.  You  see,  the  Temple  of  Agriculture,  where 
we  are  living,  and  the  Temple  of  Heaven,  where  the 
British  are  living,  are  the  two  most  sacred  spots  in  the 
whole  Chinese  Empire.  Nobody' has  a  right  to  go  in- 
side of  them  except  the  personal  attendants  of  the  Emperor 
himself,  when  he  once  a  year  visits  them  to  ask  the 


188  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

blessings  of  Heaven  and  Earth  on  his  empire,  and  al- 
though Li  Hung  Chang  is  an  Earl  of  the  first  rank,  and 
is  and  has  been  the  highest  official  in  China,  next  to  the 
Emperor  himself,  so  sacred  were  these  places  that  he, 
until  to-day,  had  never  seen  the  inside  of  them. 

As  I  have  told  you  before,  Li  is  old  and  rather  feeble 
now,  and  everywhere  he  goes  he  has  to  be  assisted.  To- 
day his  servants  helped  him  out  of  his  chair  and  into 
General  Chaffee's  sitting  room,  where  were  gathered  the 
General  and  all  his  staff.  Cigars  were  passed  around, 
but  he  did  not  take  any.  He  took  a  cigarette,  instead, 
and  one  of  his  servants  put  it  in  a  long  holder.  He 
smoked  half  of  it,  and  then  the  servant  took  it  away  from 
him  and  began  filling  a  little  Chinese  pipe.  From  then  on 
it  was  a  sight.  The  big  buck  Chinaman  handled  the 
pipe.  He  held  it  poised  in  front  of  Li  and  every  time 
he  had  a  chance  he  made  a  jab  at  the  old  man's  mouth. 
Sometimes  he  hit  the  hole  and  sometimes  he  didn't. 
Mostly  he  didn't.  Li  went  right  on  talking  as  though 
nothing  was  happening.  When  the  pipe  man  did  hit  the 
hole  Li  would  go  puff,  puff,  puff,  three  times,  and  the 
man  would  take  the  pipe  away  from  him  and  would  clean 
and  refill  it. 

One  of  the  first  questions  Li  asked  was  how  old  the 
General  was.  This  is  Chinese  politeness.  General  Chaffee 
said  he  was  fifty-eight  and  Li  complimented  him  on  his 
spryness.  Then  he  took  up  each  article  in  the  room  and 
wanted  to  know  what  it  cost — more  Chinese  politeness. 
He  complimented  the  American  soldiers  and  wanted  to 
know  what  they  cost.  When  General  Chaffee  told  him  it 
cost  about  $1000  a  year  to  keep  an  American  soldier,  I 
thought  the  old  man  would  fall  out  of  his  chair.  He  was 
astonished  beyond  measure. 

After  his  visit  in  the  General's  room  Li  went  over  to  the 
platform  where  the  Emperor  annually  prostrates  himself 
before  High  Heaven  and  watched  a  dress  parade  of  the 
Ninth  Infantry.  Then  he  examined  a  gun  such  as  the 
soldiers  carried.  Finally  he  went  over  to  the  cavalry 
camp,  where  supper  was  already  cooked,  and  he  stuck  both 
his  nose  and  his  fingers  in  every  dish  and  marveled  aloud 
at  the  idea  of  giving  such  good  food  to  common  soldiers. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  189 

Captain  Hutchinson  and  one  or  two  of  the  officers  walked 
out  to  the  gate  with  the  chair.  The  interpreter  went 
with  them  and  also  the  big  Chinaman  who  carried  huge 
fur  coats  to  keep  Li  warm.  Getting  back  far  enough  to 
be  out  of  hearing,  one  of  them  asked  in  Chinese  if  he 
couldn't  join  the  army.  He  said  that  he  was  ready  to 
join  on  the  spot  if  they  would  take  him,  and  that  all  the 
other  servants  would  do  the  same. 

"  Right  now  ?  "  demanded  Captain  Hutchinson. 

"  Yes,  now,"  said  the  volunteer. 

"  But  what  would  you  do  with  His  Excellency  ?  "  asked 
the  Captain. 

The  Chinaman  made  a  motion  that  indicated  that  he 
would  drop  him  on  the  ground  and  said,  "  Leave  him." 

"  Here  ? "  demanded  the  Captain.  "  How  could  he 
get  home  ?  " 

The  Chinaman  shrugged  his  shoulders,  as  much  as  to 
say  it  did  not  matter  to  him. 

The  Captain  of  course  told  the  fellow  that  he  was 
sorry,  but  it  was  impossible  to  take  a  Chinaman  in  the 
American  army,  and  the  rascal  seemed  to  be  very  much 
disappointed.  After  this  I  heard  that  none  of  Li's  ser- 
vants get  a  cent  of  pay.  All  they  get  is  their  food,  and  the 
honor  of  working  for  him  makes  up  the  rest.  I  also  heard 
that  while  Li  is  a  rich  man,  he  is  absolutely  strapped, 
here,  and  hasn't  money  enough  to  pay  his  expenses. 
With  the  country  disturbed  as  it  is,  there  is  no  money 
coming  in  and  he  has  no  income.  He  cannot  get  money 
from  the  South  and  if  he  does  not  succeed  in  borrowing 
some  soon  he  won't  have  enough  to  eat.  He  will  probably 
get  some  from  the  banks,  because  they  are  permanent  in- 
stitutions, and  when  the  trouble  is  all  over  he  can  make 
them  pony  up  in  great  shape,  so  they  will  be  very  likely 
to  buy  his  favor  now. 

Peking,  China,  Tuesday,  December  ii,  1900,  being 
the  twentieth  day  of  the  tenth  moon  of  the  26th 
year  of  the  reign  of  H.  L  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 
I  got  another  letter  from  home,  to-day,  that  was  a  wel- 
come messenger.     It  was  dated  October  26  and  I  felt 
when  I  got  it  that  I  was  very  rapidly  catching  up  with 


190  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

the  times.  Of  course,  I  would  have  had  it  much  sooner, 
but,  Uke  the  others,  it  took  a  few  days  off  in  Japan.  I 
certainly  was  under  the  impression  that  in  one  of  those 
Shanghai  letters  I  wrote  I  told  you  to  address  me  either 
at  Tien  Tsin  or  Peking,  but  I  guess  I  must  be  mis- 
taken. 

It's  the  old  story  to-day,  again,  of  no  news.  At 
least,  there  is  nothing  that  will  be  news  by  the  time 
you  get  this  letter,  though  I  expect  that  before  that  time 
I  shall  have  been  roundly  damned  by  a  big  proportion  of 
at  least  one  class  of  the  people  in  the  United  States.  That 
is  the  class  that  support  the  missionaries,  some  of  whom 
out  here  have  disgraced  the  Church  and  Christianity. 
Considering  all  that  has  happened  I  think  that  I  have  kept 
my  hands  off  these  people  pretty  well.  I  have  pro- 
tected them  certainly  more  than  they  deserved,  and  it 
had  been  my  intention  to  write  nothing  at  all  about 
them  unless  I  was  ordered  to  do  so.  But  events  shaped 
themselves  so  that  it  was  necessary  for  me  to  send  to 
The  Sun  a  few  bald  facts  which,  if  they  were  printed, 
have  probably  stirred  up  a  muss.  It  is  possible  that 
The  Sun  thought  it  best  not  to  print  them,  but  it  was  my 
business  to  send  them  just  the  same. 

I  think  I  have  told  you  something  about  the  offenses 
these  men  have  committed.  I  will  not  go  into  further 
detail.  It  is  sufficient  to  say  that  their  conduct  to-day 
is  not  improved  in  the  least.  They  are  still  living  in 
stolen  houses  and  paying  their  expenses  from  the  pro- 
ceeds of  the  sale  of  their  thefts.  Some  of  them  are  still 
selling  stuff  that  they  individually  stole  or  that  was 
stolen  by  their  so-called  Christians  under  their  personal 
direction. 

Well,  at  the  meeting  of  the  ministers,  to-day.  Sir 
Ernest  Satow,  the  British  Minister,  made  a  remark  that 
is  responsible  for  a  row,  if  there  has  been  a  row.  Pichon, 
the  French  Minister,  brought  up  the  question  of  in- 
demnity for  native  Christians.  The  native  Christians, 
of  course,  are  Chinese  citizens,  and  China  has  the  legal 
right,  if  she  has  not  the  moral  right,  to  do  what  she 
pleases  with  them.  So  long  as  we  recognize  her  as  a 
nation  we  have  no  more  right  to  come  to  China  and  tell 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  191 

Her  what  she  may  do,  or  what  she  may  not  do,  with  her 
own  citizens  than  she  has  to  come  to  America  and  tell  us 
what  we  may,  or  what  we  may  not,  do  with  our  own 
citizens.  The  situation  is  perhaps  a  little  different  in 
China,  because  China  has  made  treaties  with  various 
Christian  countries  in  which  she  agrees  that  converts  to 
the  Christian  religion  shall  not  be  oppressed.  That  is 
not  the  language,  but  it  is  the  meaning.  Of  course,  the 
countries  might  say,  "  You  have  violated  your  treaties 
with  us,"  and  exact  a  punishment  for  the  violation,  but 
that  is  certainly  as  far  as  they  could  go. 

Now,  France  poses  before  the  world  as  the  protector  of 
missionaries.  Her  own  missionaries  are  all  Catholics 
and  they  have  for  years  enjoyed  rights  in  China  that  no 
other  missionaries  have  enjoyed.  But  that  is  not  the 
point.  Since  the  raising  of  the  siege  in  Peking  the 
Catholic  Cathedral  here  has  at  times  been  turned  into 
a  salesroom  for  stolen  property.  I  talked  to-day  with  a 
man  who  had  himself  purchased  more  than  7,000  taels, 
worth  of  stolen  property  from  this  man.  The  word 
"  stolen  "  is,  of  course,  pretty  harsh.  The  army  softens 
it  into  loot,  and  the  missionaries  speak  of  it  as  "  reim- 
bursement." What  it  really  is  is  taking  property  be- 
longing to  another  against  the  wishes  of  the  owner  and 
converting  it  into  money  and  using  that  money  for  pur- 
poses not  sanctioned  by  the  owner,  and  if  the  dictionary 
does  not  define  that  as  stealing  then  there  must  be  some- 
thing wrong  with  the  dictionary. 

But  to  get  down  to  the  story.  At  this  Ministers'  meet- 
ing, the  French  Minister  said  that  his  Government  wished 
him  to  impress  upon  his  colleagues  the  justice  of  a  demand 
on  China  that  she  should  pay  to  the  native  Christians 
sums  suflficient  to  cover  all  their  losses  during  the  recent 
disturbances.  To  this  Sir  Ernest  Satow  retorted,  in 
effect,  that  while  that  might  be  a  very  desirable  thing 
elsewhere,  so  far  as  Peking  and  the  country  adjacent  was 
concerned  he  thought  all  his  colleagues  would  agree  with 
him  in  saying  that  the  native  Christians  had  indemnified 
themselves.  That  was  a  bald  statement — an  unfortunate 
fact  that  could  not  be  disputed,  and  that  was  not  disputed, 
by  any  of  his  colleagues.     Even  Pichon  did  not  deny  it, 


192         orderedtochina: 

and  did  not  attempt  to  make  any  reply  to  it.  When  tha? 
fact  came  to  be  put  in  the  cable  it  had  to  be  explained, 
because  the  people  in  England  and  the  United  States  do 
not  understand  the  situation  in  China  as  we  do  who  are 
right  here.  I  put  the  explanation  as  mildly  as  the  facts 
would  warrant.  If  The  Sun  printed  it  you  no  doubt 
have  already  read  it.  If  it  did  not,  here  is  the  gist  of  the 
explanation : 

"  The  remark  of  Sir  Ernest  Satow  was  due  to  the  un- 
bridled thieving  of  the  native  Christians.  They  have 
stolen  everything  they  could  lay  their  hands  on.  They 
have  been  encouraged  in  it  by  the  carnival  of  loot  that  dis- 
graced Peking.  The  missionaries  excused  themselves  and 
their  Christians  by  saying  that  they  had  the  right  to  re- 
imburse themselves  for  their  losses.  Some  of  the  mis- 
sionaries are  still  selling  the  products  of  their  stealing,  but 
most  of  them  have  sold  out.  To  these  people  nothing 
was  sacred.  They  stole  and  sold  even  the  little  brass  gods 
that  the  Chinese  worshiped." 

Now  I  suppose  you  will  accuse  me  of  writing  you  a 
lot  of  stuff  that  cannot  possibly  interest  you.  Patience  is 
a  virtue,  and  I  wanted  you  to  know  the  facts  if  anything 
has  been  said  of  a  disagreeable  character.  That  is  my 
excuse  for  writing  this  letter,  and  now  good-night.  I 
will  try  not  to  burden  my  letters  to-morrow  with  such 
stuff. 

Peking,  Wednesday,  December  12,  being  the  twenty- 
first  day  of  the  tenth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the 
reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

I  suppose  I  was  foolish  yesterday  to  write  you  that 
long  letter  about  the  missionaries,  because  very  likely 
The  Sun  did  not  print  the  dispatch  and  nothing  has  been 
said  about  it.  But  if  it  was  printed,  and  brought  out 
some  mean  rejoinders,  I  wanted  you  to  know  the  reason 
for  the  assault.  I  did  not  want  you  to  think  it  was  a 
gratuitous  blow  at  the  Christians,  given  without  a  proper 
excuse.     Now  we  will  let  the  matter  drop. 

This  has  been  a  mighty  dull  sort  of  a  day,  with  scarcely 
anything  to  break  the  monotony.  The  weather  was  so 
fine  that  I  gave  my  pony  a  rest  and  walked  the  four  miles 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  193 

to  the  Legation  and  back.  To-night  I  sent  off  a  dis- 
patch, attempting  to  show  the  necessity  for  hurrying 
along  the  peace  negotiations.  A  Chinaman  who  is  in  my 
employ  told  me  of  a  conversation  that  Li  Hung  Chang 
had,  in  which  Li  made  some  statements  about  China's 
willingness  to  make  proper  amends.  There  wasn't  any- 
thing particular  in  the  talk  except  that  it  showed  that 
China  is  in  the  right  mood  to  accept  the  terms  the  powers 
will  present  to  her,  and  for  that  reason  every  day's  delay 
by  the  powers  in  making  their  demands  is  dangerous. 
The  way  of  the  heathen  is  peculiar,  and  there  is  no 
telling  when  she  will  change  her  mind.  While  her 
power  to  resist  any  demand  that  may  be  made  is  prac- 
tically nil,  she  can  hold  off  and  dally  and  cause  a  heap  of 
trouble  if  she  makes  up  her  mind  to  do  so.  England  is 
delaying  the  whole  negotiations  and  my  dispatch  was 
aimed  at  her.  The  London  Times  man  also  sent  off  a 
dispatch,  the  tenor  of  which  was  the  same,  and  I  guess 
that  is  the  story  of  the  day. 

This  letter  is  short,  but  yesterday's  was  long,  so  the 
two  will  even  matters  up  and  I'll  say  good-night  again. 

Peking,  Thursday,  December  12,  1900,  being  the 
twenty-second  day  of  the  tenth  month  of  the  26th 
year  of  the  reign  of  H.  L  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

I  wonder  if  these  weeks  slip  by  as  quickly  with  you  as 
they  do  with  me.  Truly,  I  hardly  realize  that  they  have 
begun  when  I  find  that  they  are  gone.  I  am  always  a 
day  or  two  behind  in  my  dates,  and  always  have  to  look 
at  a  calendar  to  make  sure,  either  when  I  write  a  letter  or 
a  telegram.  Here  is  Thursday,  and  half  an  hour  ago, 
before  I  had  looked  the  matter  up,  I  think  I  would  have 
sworn  that  it  was  Tuesday.  As  I  have  heard  you  re- 
mark once  or  twice,  tempus  is  certainly  fugitin'  in  great 
shape. 

I  got  the  unpleasant  news  to-day  that  the  cable  between 
Hong  Kong  and  Shanghai  had  broken  down  again,  and 
that  all  the  cables  sent  off  the  past  week  or  two  had  been 
going  via  Vladivostock,  which  means,  I  suppose,  that  the 
newspaper  matter  filed  is  still  lying  in  the  cable  office  at 
Shanghai  and  will  stay  there  until  the  cables  are  mended. 


194  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

So,  very  likely,  the  office  thinks  I  have  gone  off  on  a 
vacation  again. 

Generally  speaking,  there  is  the  greatest  misconception 
among  people,  and  particularly  cable  people,  as  to  the 
value  of  a  newspaper  dispatch.  They  lose  sight  entirely 
of  the  fact  that  every  dispatch  of  a  few  hundred  words 
represents  an  investment  of  at  least  $i,ooo,and  perhaps  of 
several  thousand  dollars ;  that  it  is  what  might  be  termed 
perishable  goods,  and  that  every  hour's  delay  makes  it  so 
much  less  valuable,  while  if  the  delay  is  a  day  or  two  it 
loses  its  value  entirely  and  represents  so  much  money 
thrown  away.  That  is  the  fact,  nevertheless.  In  spite 
of  the  fact  that  the  newspapers  are  the  best  customers  a 
cable  company  has  in  times  like  these,  and  that  the  income 
from  them  is  regular,  the  newspaper  matter  filed  with  a 
cable  company  is  always  the  last  to  be  sent  away.  The 
result,  of  course,  is  that  thousands  of  dollars  are  lost  by 
the  papers. 

There  are  two  new  institutions  starting  up  in  Peking. 
Both  are  clubs.  One  is  the  American  Officers'  Club, 
which  is  being  started  in  the  Temple  of  Agriculture.  All 
of  the  officers  of  the  army  stationed  here  are  members.  I 
am  not  eligible  for  full  membership,  but  have  been 
elected  an  honorary  member,  which  gives  me  the  privilege 
of  the  club.  The  other  is  the  International  Club,  which  is 
made  up  of  the  officers  of  all  the  armies,  the  members  of 
the  Diplomatic  Corps,  and  such  civilians  as  care  to  join 
who  are  acceptable.  I  have  not  joined  this  yet,  but  I 
shall  do  so,  because  it  will  be  a  gathering  place  for  all 
nationalities  and  a  center  for  news.  Therefore  it  will 
be  necessary  for  me  to  be  a  member,  though  I  care  noth- 
ing at  all  about  the  club. 

I  got  hold  of  a  couple  of  little  curios  to-day  in  the  shape 
of  a  mandarin  seal  and  a  miniature  bronze  incense  burner. 
The  seal  is  like  a  nest  of  boxes.  It  is  of  brass  and  there 
are  four  pieces  to  it,  each  piece  having  a  different  seal 
on  every  side.  All  told  there  are  sixteen  seals.  It  is 
quite  a  curiosity.  The  man  who  had  it  (a  Chinaman) 
wanted  $io  for  it.  I  offered  him  $i  and  he  took  it. 
The  other  little  curio  is  a  fancy  bronze  piece  that  will  be 
very  pretty,  I  think,  when  it  is  polished.     It  is  on  a  little 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  195 

wooden  stand,  which  is  in  itself  an  indication  that  it  is  a 
good  piece,  for  the  reason  that  the  Chinese  never  build 
a  hardwood  stand  to  hold  a  piece  of  any  sort  unless  the 
piece  itself  is  a  good  one.  I  am  going  to  cash  them  both 
away  in  my  trunk. 

Peking,  China,  Friday,  December  14th,  1900,  being 
the  twenty-third  day  of  the  tenth  moon  of  the 
26th  year  of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu, 

I  guess  I  shall  again  be  compelled  to  fall  back  on 
Chinese  characteristics  to  make  letters  sufficiently  inter- 
esting to  save  you  from  being  absolutely  bored  to  death. 
In  Peking,  as  everywhere  else,  there  is  a  sameness  about 
the  daily  routine  that  becomes  exceedingly  wearisome. 
You  think  I  see  new  faces  and  new  things  every  day, 
and  that  hence  life  is  one  continual  round  of  things  to 
write  about.  But  that's  a  mistake,  for  new  things  become 
old  quickly,  once  you  see  them,  and  things  in  Peking  are 
getting  very  old  indeed.  Curiosity  has  been  satisfied, 
and  it's  very  hard  indeed  to  keep  up  the  interest.  How- 
ever, I'll  travel  along. 

This  morning  I  was  going  through  the  Imperial  City 
when  I  saw  a  Chinaman  dressed  in  a  garment  that  looked 
like  a  tiger-skin,  and  thereby  hangs  a  tale — a  tail,  by  the 
way,  hung  from  the  garment.  The  fellow  was  suffi- 
ciently interesting  for  me  to  inquire  about,  and  I  found  he 
was  one  of  the  Imperial  army.  He  belonged  to  the 
Tiger  Brigade.  Now  don't  laugh  and  I'll  tell  you 
about  it. 

It  seems  that  the  Chinese  have  an  idea  that  noise  is  a 
frightful  thing.  You  really  wouldn't  think  that  this  was 
true  if  you  were  in  Peking  a  moment  and  listened  to  the 
din,  or  spent  a  minute  or  two  watching  the  progress  of  a 
conversation  between  two  Chinamen,  or,  particularly,  two 
Chinese  women.  But  it  is  the  fact.  And  if  noise  can  be 
associated  with  an  object  of  which  the  ordinary  man  is 
afraid,  so  much  the  better.  The  ordinary  man,  of  course, 
is  afraid  of  a  tiger,  so  what  could  be  better  than  a  brigade 
of  tigers  to  strike  terror  to  the  hearts  of  your  enemies. 
Now  tigers  are  plentiful  in  this  benighted  country,  but 
they  are  not  easily  caught  nor  are  they  easily  trained,  so 


196  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

handling  as  many  as  a  thousand  of  them  would  be  exceed- 
ingly interesting,  if  not  dangerous.  Real  tigers  are  really 
not  necessary.  If  you  can  make  your  enemy  believe  you 
have  a  thousand  trained  tigers  coming  to  devour  him, 
that  is  just  as  good  as  if  you  had  the  tigers,  and  that  is 
the  secret  of  the  Tiger  Brigade. 

The  Chinese  have  not  a  thousand,  but  several  thousand, 
of  these  tiger  soldiers.  They  make  uniforms  for  them  of 
bright  yellow  cloth  and  on  this  they  paint  the  black  stripes 
in  imitation  of  the  tiger's  skin.  They  sew  on  a  striped 
tail  and  the  tiger  soldier  is  ready  to  go  forth  to  battle.  In 
war  times  the  brigade  is  put  right  to  the  front  of  the 
army.  When  the  army  gets  near  the  enemy — near 
enough  to  be  seen  plainly — the  tiger  soldiers  drop  on  their 
hands  and  knees  and  begin  to  roar  as  loudly  as  their  lungs 
will  let  them.  If  the  imagination  of  the  enemy  is  good 
and  strong,  like  that  of  a  Journal  reporter,  he  immediately 
sees  several  thousand  ferocious  tigers  advancing  upon 
him  to  devour  him  and  he  runs  as  if  Old  Nick  himself 
were  after  him.  Now  what  do  you  think  of  that  for  an 
idea  in  the  year  of  our  Lord  1900?  It  is  not  much 
wonder,  is  it,  that  anybody  who  wants  to  can  step  in  and 
whip  China,  or  that  she  is  almost  powerless  to  resist  any 
attack  that  can  be  made  on  her.  Yet  there  are  people 
living  who  talk  about  "  the  yellow  peril  "  and  the  invasion 
and  over-running  of  Europe  by  it — the  peril  being  the 
Chinese  who  use  tiger  brigades !  The  longer  we  live  the 
more  we  learn. 

Peking,  Saturday,  December  15,  1900,  being  the 
twenty-fourth  day  of  the  tenth  moon  of  the  26th 
year  of  the  reign  of  Kuang  Hsu,  H.  I.  M. 

Sir  Ernest  Satow,  the  British  Minister,  has  at  last 
heard  from  his  Government  about  the  preliminary  de- 
mands that  are  to  be  made  on  the  Chinese,  and,  of  course, 
he  has  got  to  have  a  change  made  in  the  note !  How 
long  this  thing  is  going  to  keep  up  Heaven  only  knows. 
It  may  be  that  the  other  fellows  will  agree  to  the  new 
propositions  and  it  may  be  that  they  won't.  The  danger 
is  that  if  England  gets  this  change  that  she  wants,  one 
of  the  others  will  want  a  change,  and  so  the  matter  will 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  197 

go  off  again  for  weeks.  I  certainly  hope  it  won't,  but 
there  is  no  telling  what  will  happen.  They  seem  all  to 
agree,  one  day,  as  to  what  they  want,  and  the  next  day 
they  agree  to  disagree,  and  so  it  goes. 

This  leads  me  to  remark  that  ninety  days  ago  China 
said  to  the  powers :  "  I  have  been  wrong ;  I  have  com- 
mitted offenses  against  you.  I  acknowledge,  now,  that  I 
was  wrong,  and  I  am  willing  to  do  anything  in  my  power 
to  repair  the  damage.  I  will  pay  you  whatever  in- 
demnity you  demand.  I  will  punish  my  officials  who 
have  been  responsible  for  this  trouble.  I  want  peace. 
Tell  me  what  you  want  me  to  do,  and,  if  it  is  in  my 
power,  I  will  do  it.  I  appoint  Li  Hung  Chang  and 
Prince  Ching,  my  two  most  eminent  and  respected  sub- 
jects, to  treat  with  you.  Tell  them  what  you  want  and  I 
will  do  it." 

That's  one  side.  For  a  month  before  China  said  this, 
and  every  day  since  then,  the  whole  world  has  shouted  at 
her,  "  Peace  !  Peace !  Peace !  "  Now  let  us  see  what  the 
representatives  of  the  whole  world  have  done.  Have 
they  let  her  have  peace?  Not  by  a  jugful.  They  have 
sent  out  expeditions  to  kill  her  citizens  and  loot  her  vil- 
lages. They  have  driven  her  army  over  the  border  of  at 
least  one  province,  and  have  left  the  people  of  that  prov- 
ince— those  whom  they  have  not  killed — the  prey  of 
bands  of  robbers  and  outlaws.  They  have  violated  every 
law  of  civilized  warfare.  The  Geneva  Convention  formu- 
lated the  rules  of  civilized  warfare  and  not  one  article  of 
that  convention  has  been  respected — not  one.  Ninety 
days  have  passed  and  military  expeditions  are  still  going 
on.  Chinamen  are  being  killed.  Villages  are  being 
robbed  and  destroyed.  Bands  of  Christians — Christians, 
mind  you — are  levying  blackmail  with  more  expertness 
than  Tammany  Hall  herself  ever  displayed.  For  ninety 
days  China  has  held  up  her  hands,  whipped.  She  has 
declared,  "  Pve  had  enough,"  and  murder  and  robbery 
have  been  the  answer  of  civilized  nations.  What  would 
you  think  of  a  dozen  powerful  men  who  jumped  on  an 
imbecile  and  beat  and  kicked  him  as  he  lay  helpless,  plead- 
ing for  mercy?  I  know  what  I  would  think  and  I  must 
say   that  the   expression   of  my   thoughts   is   unfit   for. 


198  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

publication.  A  more  disgraceful  spectacle  surely  never 
was  seen  in  this  world's  history. 

Having  relieved  my  mind,  I  will  now  change  the 
subject.  I  don't  know  what  has  happened  to  Pek- 
ing weather,  but  for  a  week  now  it  has  simply  been 
delightful.  There  has  been  no  wind  to  speak  of,  and 
little  dust,  and  the  crisp  cold  has  been  fine.  Here  Christ- 
mas is  coming  on  and  I  don't  know  what  in  the  world  I 
am  going  to  do  without  you  all,  but  it's  got  to  be  done.  I 
thought  a  month  ago,  when  I  wrote  you  Christmas  letters, 
that  I  would  dismiss  the  subject,  but  I  guess  I  won't 
be  able  to  do  it.  I  certainly  hope  that  you  have  received 
my  Christmas  packages.  There  wasn't  much,  and  I 
have  not  yet  succeeded  in  getting  ofif  the  one  for  G.  and 
C,  but  Peking  is  not  the  ideal  place  to  get  Christmas 
gifts,  as  I  told  you  at  the  time. 

Well,  Pm  going  to  stop  right  here  and  now  or  Pll  be 
getting  blue. 

Peking,  Sunday,  December  i6,  1900.  The  same  being 
the  twenty-fifth  day  of  the  tenth  moon  of  the  26th 
year  of  the  reign  of  Kuang  Hsu,  H.  I.  M. 

A  new  boarder  came  to  camp  to-day.  His  name  is 
B.,  and  he  represents  The  Herald.  His  entry  was 
not  a  particularly  happy  one,  and  I  have  an  idea  that  his 
stay  won't  be  an  altogether  happy  one,  either.  He  rather 
started  in  wrong.  At  Tien  Tsin  he  sat  himself  down  and 
wrote  a  telegram  to  Mr.  Cheshire,  the  Chinese  Secretary 
of  the  American  Legation,  saying,  in  peremptory  fashion, 
"  Engage  room  for  me  and  send  cart  to  meet  me."  Now, 
that's  all  right  perhaps,  when  you  are  pretty  well  ac- 
quainted, but  when  you  have  no  more  than  a  bowing 
acquaintance  with  a  fellow  it  is  a  more  or  less  unfortunate 
way  to  approach  him.  Mr.  B.'s  reception  at  the  Lega- 
tion will,  I  think,  be  about  four  degrees  colder  than 
the  weather,  which  is  in  the  neighborhood  of  zero.  In 
fact,  I  think  he'll  need  a  fur  coat,  though  I  may  be  mis- 
taken. However,  that's  neither  here  nor  there,  and  I  don't 
suppose  it  interests  you  in  the  least.  Pll  have  to  fall  back 
once  more  on  Chinese  characteristics  to  get  you  in  good 
humor. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  199 

I've  learned  that  in  dealing  with  the  Chinaman  you 
must  always  remember  that  he  thinks  you  are  a  fool  and 
that  you  must  govern  yourself  accordingly.  If  you  don't 
you  will  be  cheated,  and  let  me  say  right  here  that  the 
Chinaman's  judgment  of  the  man  he  is  dealing  with  is 
generally  correct,  particularly  if  the  customer  is  an 
American,  the  Americans  being  living  examples  of  the 
saying,  "  a  fool  and  his  money  are  soon  parted."  But  to 
get  back  to  the  Chinese  characteristic.  If  you  want  to 
buy  something  of  a  Chinaman  and  he  tells  you  the  price 
and  you  say  you'll  take  it  at  that  price,  just  as  like  as  not, 
after  making  the  sale,  the  Celestial  will  go  off  and  commit 
suicide,  on  the  ground  that  he  is  losing  his  business  judg- 
ment. He  will  think  how  much  more  he  might  have 
charged  you  and  will  count  the  difference  as  an  absolute 
and  inexcusable  loss.  So,  if  it  ever  falls  to  you  to  deal 
with  a  Chinaman,  remember  that  by  refusing  to  buy  at 
his  price  you  are  probably  saving  his  life.  With  this 
short  lesson  in  Chinese  trading,  I'll  close  for  the  day. 

Peking,  Monday,  December  17,  1900.  The  same  being 
the  twenty-sixth  day  of  the  tenth  moon  of  the 
26th  year  of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

Chinese  mourning  for  departed  relatives  is  one  of  the 
queer  things  I  think  I  haven't  told  you  a  great  deal  about. 
If  I  remember  rightly,  I  told  you  in  a  Shanghai  letter 
about  the  wallers  who  are  employed  to  illustrate  the  in- 
tensity of  the  grief  of  the  bereaved,  so  I  won't  repeat  that, 
but  what  I  want  to  tell  you  now  was  brought  to  my  mind 
by  the  sight  of  one  of  the  most  miserable  creatures  that 
I  have  ever  laid  eyes  on.  He  was  dirty  beyond  descrip- 
tion, and  his  hair,  instead  of  being  neatly  braided,  was 
disheveled.  It  hung  over  his  eyes.  It  was  a  sight  to 
behold.  He  looked,  in  fact,  as  near  a  wild  man  as  one 
can  imagine.  I  was  riding  along  at  the  time  with 
Pethick,  the  American  Secretary  of  Li  Hung  Chang. 
Now,  in  the  American  District,  the  most  severe  punish- 
ment ever  inflicted  on  a  Chinaman  is  to  cut  off  his  pig- 
tail. When  a  man  is  caught  stealing,  his  pigtail  is  cut. 
As  I  said,  this  creature's  hair  was  not  braided  and  it 
Struck  me  at  once  that  he  had  been  caught  stealing  and 


200  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

that  his  hair  had  been  cut  and  had  not  grown  long  enough 
again  to  braid.  I  said  to  Pethick,  "  There's  a  miserable- 
looking  old  thief." 

Pethick  looked  at  the  man  a  moment  and  said,  "  Oh,  no, 
you're  wrong.  That  man  is  a  merchant.  I  know  him 
well.     He  is  in  mourning  for  his  father," 

"  What !  "  I  said. 

"  Yes,"  said  Pethick,  "  his  father  died  about  nine 
months  ago.  I  remember  it  very  well,  and  that's  the  boy, 
mourning." 

The  "  boy  "  was  fully  fifty  years  old.  Then  I  learned 
that  in  some  of  the  writings  of  Confucius  it  is  said  that  a 
parent  should  be  mourned  for  three  years,  and  that  rule 
is  followed  by  the  Chinese.  There  is  a  regular  official 
period  of  mourning,  recognized  by  law,  and,  in  the  case 
of  officials  of  the  Government,  enforced  by  law,  too. 
When  parents  of  an  official  die,  the  official  goes  into  re- 
tirement for  three  years.  If  he  is  a  valuable  official,  his 
sentence  may  be  commuted  to  two  years,  two  years  of 
good  solid  mourning  being  equivalent  to  three  years  of 
the  ordinary  kind.  During  this  period  of  mourning  the 
child  must  indulge  in  no  pleasure  or  entertainments  of 
any  kind.  For  a  large  part  of  the  time  he  wears  white 
clothing,  white  being  the  mourning  color.  It  is  the 
custom  to  let  the  hair  grow  and  never  cut  it  until  the 
period  of  mourning  is  over.  It  is  also  the  custom  to  go 
unwashed.  Soap  and  water  and  cleanliness  are  not  con- 
sistent with  sorrow.  The  man  we  saw,  who  brought  out 
these  facts,  was  just  doing  a  good  job  of  mourning. 

In  connection  with  all  this  show  of  sorrow  I  must  tell 
you  the  custom  immediately  preceding  death.  When 
the  doctor  gives  up  all  hope  for  the  patient,  the  head  of 
the  house  sends  for  the  undertaker.  He  awaits  him  in 
the  room  where  the  patient  is  sick  and  the  conservation 
goes  on  in  a  loud  voice  something  like  this. 

"  What  are  you  charging  to-day  for  coffins  ?  " 

"  One  hundred  strings  of  cash." 

"What,  lOO  strings  of  cash?  Why,  that  is  robbery! 
I  won't  pay  any  such  outrageous  price.     I  won't  get  a 

coffin,  you  ,  at  any  such  price.     No,  I'll  bury  

without  a  coffin." 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  201 

"  Well,  what  do^  you  offer  ?  " 

"  Fifty  strings." 

"  Ridiculous.  I'd  want  that  much  just  for  handling  the 
body  of  such  a  miserable  creature." 

About  this  time,  if  the  patient  has  the  strength,  he  or 
she  usually  joins  in  the  conversation  and  abuses  the  un- 
dertaker warmly,  swearing  by  all  the  gods  that  if  he  is 
going  to  commit  a  highway  robbery  of  that  sort,  the 
dying  will  be  postponed.  Not  under  any  circumstances 
would  the  patient  consent  to  die  when  such  a  price  was  to 
be  charged  for  a  coffin.  The  undertaker  talks  back.  He 
abuses  the  patient,  and  probably  says  he  doesn't  care  a 
whoop  whether  he  or  she  dies  or  not.  If  the  patient 
wants  to  be  mean  about  it  and  not  die,  just  because  a 
reasonable  price  is  to  be  charged  for  a  coffin,  all  right ;  he 
don't  care,  anyway,  for  a  neighbor  up  the  street  is  going 
to  die  in  a  day  or  two,  and  probably  he'll  be  too  busy  to 
attend  to  the  funeral. 

Well,  this  conversation  goes  on  until  finally  the  coffin  is 
purchased  for,  say,  sixty  strings  of  cash,  and  the  other 
arrangements  for  the  funeral,  such  as  lining  the  inside 
of  the  house  with  white  and  getting  white  stuff  for  the 
mourning  clothing,  are  completed.  If  the  patient  did 
have  sufficient  strength  to  engage  in  the  bargaining,  the 
engagement  probably  used  it  all  up  and  the  arrangements 
are  completed  none  too  soon.  Queer  people  the  Chinese 
are,  are  they  not? 

Peking,    Tuesday,    December    i8,   being   the   twenty- 
seventh  day  of  the  tenth,  moon  of  the  26th  year  of 
the  reign  of  Kuang  Hsu,  and  by  actual  count  the 
128th  time  that  I  have  sat  me  down  to  write  since 
I  left  home. 
You  will  notice  that  I  have  changed  the  headline  of  my 
letter.     It  is  not  a  permanent  change.     It  just  occurred  to 
me  that  this  was  the  128th  letter  I  had  written.     Heaven 
knows  I  wouldn't  try  to  keep  a  daily  record  of  the  num- 
ber.    It  is  all  I  can  do  to  keep  the  two  calendars  running, 
let  alone  additional  data. 

I  have  to  relate  to-dav  a  little  social  disturbance  that 
is  ruffling  the  usually  placid  waters  of  Peking  society. 


202  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

It  relates  to  our  German  friends,  the  Hon.  Mumm  von 
Schwarzenstein  (something  of  a  stumble  over,  that  name, 
isn't  it?  and  I  don't  think  you  can  blame  me)  and  his 
still  more  Honorable  Nibs,  the  Field  Marshal  Count  von 
Waldersee.  Mumm  von  Schwarzenstein  is  quite  well 
known  in  the  United  States,  both  through  the  wine  that 
he  manufactures,  i.  e.,  Mumm's  extra  day  (his  relatives 
actually  manufacture  it,  I  believe)  and  the  fact  that  he 
visited  America  on  two  or  three  occasions.  Once  he  was 
in  Washington  as  the  Secretary  of  the  German  Legation, 
and  again  he  was  there  to  negotiate  a  special  treaty  with 
us.  Each  time  he  was  noted  for  the  elaborateness  of  his 
entertainments.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Field  Marshal, 
Count  von  Waldersee,  is  married  to  an  American  woman, 
so  you  see  the  controversy  between  the  distinguished  pair 
is  necessarily  of  interest  to  Americans. 

Mumm  von  Schwarzenstein  is  the  German  Minister  to 
China.  He  succeeded  Baron  von  Kettler,  who  also  had 
an  American  wife,  and  who  was  killed  early  in  the  trouble 
in  Peking.  Now  the  row  is  over  a  question  of  prece- 
dence, the  vexing  subject  that  is  the  cause  of  all  diplo- 
matic rows  that  occur  in  these  degenerate  days.  Von 
Schwarzenstein,  as  the  Minister  from  Germany,  asserts 
that  of  necessity  he  is  the  ranking  man  from  his  country 
in  China.  Count  von  Waldersee,  on  the  contrary,  as- 
serts that  as  one  of  the  five  Field  Marshals,  as  a  former 
Chancellor  of  the  German  Empire,  as  the  veteran  of  many 
wars,  and  as  the  Commander  of  the  Allied  Forces,  he  is 
the  ranking  man.  Well,  this  difference  of  opinion  is  a 
most  serious  affair,  for  the  reason  that  it  is  impossible  for 
Germany's  two  distinguished  statesmen  to  appear  in 
public  together.  It  makes  it  impossible  for  the  Minister 
even  to  invite  the  Field  Marshal  to  take  a  diplomatic 
dinner  with  him.  It  makes  it  impossible  for  the  Field 
Marshal  even  to  invite  von  Mumm  to  have  a  military 
dinner  with  him.  It  makes  it  impossible  for  the  Minister 
of  any  other  country  even  to  invite  von  Mumm  and  the 
Field  Marshal  to  take  dinner  at  their  home  on  the  same 
day,  and,  up  to  the  present  time,  it  has  made  it  impossible 
for  the  other  Ministers  even  to  have  the  Field  Marshal 
present  at  a  dinner  when  any  other  Minister  is  present. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  203 

Sad,  isn't  it?  No  mortal  man  can  tell  how  many  good 
dinners  these  statesmen  have  missed.  Dinners  are  like 
the  wheel  and  the  water,  you  know — the  wheel  will  never 
turn  again  with  the  water  that  has  passed,  and  you  can 
bet  your  bottom  dollar  that  when  a  dinner  in  China  is 
missed  it  is  gone  for  good.  They  are  a  scarce  article, 
anyway. 

At  the  present  moment  there  seems  to  be  a  little  chance 
that  the  controversy  may  be  ended.  H.  G.  S.  of 
the  American  Legation  was  the  first  one  to  crack  the  ice. 
S.  is  the  Secretary  of  the  Legation.  Mrs.  S.  does 
considerable  entertaining  and  she  has  been  making  a 
great  deal  of  von  Waldersee.  In  order  to  test  things 
she  sent  out  an  invitation  to  dinner,  last  week,  to  a  num- 
ber of  diplomats,  including  the  Russian  Minister  M.  de 
Giers,  and  the  Spanish  Minister  M.  de  Cologon  and  to 
Field  Marshal  Count  von  Waldersee.  She  put  the 
question  plumply  to  the  Ministers  as  to  whether  or  not  a 
Minister  ranked  a  Field  Marshal  who  commanded  the 
armies  of  the  powers  and  whether  the  Field  Marshal  or 
the  Minister  was  entitled  to  the  seat  of  honor  at  the  table. 
You  understand,  of  course,  there  wasn't  any  question 
about  grub  or  crockery.  Mr.  S.  guaranteed  to 
furnish  the  same  food  to  the  whole  crowd  and  to  give 
them  all  clean  plates  and  knives  and  forks  and  spoons. 
It  was  merely  the  question  of  seating  at  the  table.  The 
Ministers  to  whom  this  question  was  referred  gave  diplo- 
matic answers.  They  said  that  of  course  they  would  be 
honored  to  give  to  the  Field  Marshal  Count  von  Wal- 
dersee the  post  of  honor.  He  was  an  old  man  with  white 
hair  and  a  distinguished  record  of  service  for  his  country. 

That  didn't  answer  the  question,  exactly,  but  as  the  in- 
vitations were  out  the  Field  Marshal  would  get  the 
best  seat,  it  was  all  right  according  to  Mrs.  S.'s 
idea.  Needless  to  say,  von  Mumm  was  not  a  guest  at 
the  dinner.  One  dinner  having  been  pulled  off  success- 
fully, as  they  say  in  the  prize  ring,  it  was  decided  to  try 
another,  and  the  Hon.  Ernest  Satow,  the  British  Min- 
ister, decided  to  try  his  hand.  He  has  sent  out  invitations 
to  a  number  of  the  Ministers  and  to  Count  von  Wal- 
dersee, and  he  proposes  also  to  give  the  Count  the  seat 


204  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

of  honor.  So  far  as  I  have  heard,  the  Hon.  Mnmm  von 
Schwarzenstein  is  not  included  in  Satow's  Hst,  either,  and 
it  is  quietly  whispered  that  the  Field  Marshal  gets  the 
post  of  honor  on  this  occasion  because  he  is  made  a 
special  guest  of  honor,  and  not  because  the  Ministers  are 
of  lesser  rank.  However  that  may  be,  Mumm  von 
Schwarzenstein  is  out  another  dinner  and  Count  von 
Waldersee  is  in  one,  or  rather  one  will  be  in  him. 

I  said  that  there  was  a  prospect  of  the  end  of  the  con- 
troversy. You  see  I  base  that  on  the  fact  that  apparently 
the  plan  is  to  starve  von  Mumm  into  submission.  Of 
course  it  will  be  a  hard  job,  because  when  it  gets  down  to 
hard  tack,  Mumm  von  Schwarzenstein  can  eat  his  name, 
and  that,  you  must  admit,  will  sustain  him  a  long  time,  and 
then  he  may  fall  back  on  the  champagne  his  relations 
make.  How  long  a  man  can  live  on  champagne  I  don't 
know.  I  heard  a  rumor  to-day  that  he  might  adopt 
retaliatory  measures  and  refuse  to  send  any  more  wine 
to  the  Ministers.  He  has  made  a  practice  of  keeping 
several  of  them  in  wine.  When  this  rumor  reached  the 
Ministers,  of  course,  there  was  great  excitement  and  talk 
of  appealing  to  Count  von  Waldersee,  who  is  organizing 
a  local  government  in  Peking  forcibly  to  seize  all  the  wine 
Mumm  has,  on  the  ground  that  it  has  not  paid  any  in- 
ternal revenue  tax.  Whether  the  Count  would  take  such 
an  extreme  measure  is  a  question.  From  this  short  sketch 
you  can  see  how  serious  this  social  row  is.  I'll  try  and 
keep  you  informed  on  the  developments. 

Peking,  Wednesday,  December  19,  being  the  twenty- 
eighth  day  of  the  tenth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of 
the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

There  is  nothing  new  to-day  in  the  social  disturbance. 
Sir  Ernest  Satow's  dinner,  which  was  to  have  been  given 
next  Sunday  evening,  has  been  postponed  until  a  week 
from  Sunday.  The  Field  Marshal  will  tighten  his  belt 
in  the  meantime  to  prevent  the  pangs  of  hunger. 
Whether  Mumm  von  Schwarzenstein  has  begun  to  eat 
his  name  yet  I  don't  know. 

But,  to  go  back  to  a  Chinese  subject  for  a  moment,  it 
may  interest  you  to  know  that  the  Government  of  China 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  205 

Is  a  paternal  government.  It's  the  paternalest  govern- 
ment on  the  face  of  the  earth.  I  was  looking  over  some 
decrees  of  His  Nibs,  Kuang  Hsu,  the  other  day,  and  I 
ran  into  a  lot  that  went  something  like  this : 

"  Wang  Wen  Shav,  the  Grand  Secretariat,  has  again 
applied  to  us  for  permission  to  resign  his  offices  because 
he  is  suffering  severe  bodily  affliction  and  he  has  boils. 
He  has  our  sincere  and  heartfelt  sympathy,  but  we  con- 
sider him  too  valuable  an  assistant  to  us  in  the  manage- 
ment of  our  affairs  to  think  of  letting  him  resign.  We 
therefore  extend  his  leave  of  absence  for  two  months,  and 
we  direct  our  Commissioner  of  the  Royal  Household  to 
present  to  him  one  box  of  pills,  which  we  hope  will  do 
his  stomach  good  and  restore  his  health,  that  he  may 
return  to  our  service.  We  also  direct  that  the  Com- 
missioner give  him  two  ounces  of  the  best  ginseng  root, 
that  he  may  be  the  more  speedily  restored." 

Now  just  imagine  Secretary  Hay,  for  instance,  apply- 
ing for  the  privilege  of  resigning  his  office  as  Secretary 
of  State,  and  the  President  issuing  a  special  proclamation, 
informing  him  that  he  can't  resign,  but  that  the  Presi- 
dent's butler  will  at  once  fill  him  full  of  pills  to  make  him 
feel  better  and  then  you  have  the  situation.  Funny 
country,  isn't  it? 

Peking,  Thursday,  December  20,  1900,  Being  the 
twenty-ninth  day  of  the  tenth  moon  of  the  26th 
year  of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

I'm  sure  I  don't  know  when  the  blooming  thing  ever 
will  get  over !  It  seems  to  me,  one  day,  that  the  end  is 
very  near  and  that  everybody  will  come  to  an  agreement 
quickly,  and  then,  the  next  day,  something  happens  and 
everybody  is  at  sixes  and  sevens.  I'm  getting  mighty 
tired  of  it,  I  can  tell  you.  I  am  sending  off  by  cable 
every  day  as  much  as  I  think  the  thing  is  worth,  but  I'm 
afraid  all  the  time  that  it  is  more  than  the  readers  of 
The  Sun  think  it  is  worth.  I  don't  hear  anything  from 
the  office,  though,  and  so  I  guess  it  is  all  right. 

I  wrote  you  the  other  day  that  after  my  last  batch  of 
letters  went  off  you  should  not  be  surprised  or  worried 
if  for  a  while  they  came  irregularly.     The  reason  is  that 


206  ORDERED    TQCHINA 

the  magnificent  mail  system  I  took  so  much  pains  to  tell 
you  about  seems  to  have  gone  to  pot.  However,  there 
isn't  any  use  of  my  telling  you  about  it  now,  for  long 
before  you  get  this  letter  it  will  have  been  fixed  up  again 
and  there  won't  be  anything  to  complain  of.  When  you 
get  this  letter,  though,  along  with  a  batch  of  twenty  or 
thirty,  it  will  explain  to  you  the  delay  and  will  assure  you, 
along  with  the  twenty  or  thirty  others  that  will  have  been 
written  before  this  and  they  leave  here,  that  I  haven't 
forgotten  you  at  all,  no  matter  what  you  may  think. 
Our  Government  would  not  charter  a  boat  to  carry  the 
mail  to  Nagasaki  because  it  would  cost  $i,ooo  a  day,  and 
we  shall  be  practically  without  mail  except  such  as  is 
carried  by  the  Chinese  Post  or  by  courtesy  of  the  Japa- 
nese transport  system  until  we  unfreeze,  which  will  be 
along  sometime  early  in  the  new  year. 

For  this  reason  I'm  going  to  cut  my  letters  down  short 
for  a  while,  though  I  will  write  every  day  as  usual.  I 
don't  want  you  to  get  a  bunch  so  big  that  they  will  bore 
you  half  to  death.  Now  don't  say  my  letters  never  bore 
you.  Perhaps  they  wouldn't  if  they  came  to  you  every 
day,  but  when  they  come  in  batches  of  forty,  more  or  less, 
I  know  they  will.  About  the  time  that  you  ought  to  be 
getting  them  and  don't  I'll  cable  John  Ward  the  word 
"  well  "  and  he'll  write  you  so  that  you'll  hear  from  me 
right  up  to  date  anyway. 

Now,  good-night.  Nothing  has  happened  to-day  worth 
a  cent.  With  all  my  love  for  you  and  for  the  blessed 
little  ones  .... 

Peking,  Friday,  December  21,  being  the  thirtieth  day 
of  the  tenth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
H.  I.  M.    Kuang  Hsu. 

It's  been  another  dull  sort  of  a  day,  and  it's  getting  on 
near  Christmas,  and  I'm  free  to  confess  that  it's  getting 
sort  of  blue  and  lonesome.  I  was  thinking,  this  after- 
noon, that  the  packages  and  the  Christmas  letter  I  sent 
you  a  month  or  so  ago  ought  to  have  reached  you  by  this 
time  and  that  you  probably  know  I  have  done  the  best  I 
could.  At  least  I  certainly  hope  they  went  through  all 
right. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  207 

I  have  been  invited,  with  Lieutenant  Reeves,  to  take 
dinner  Christmas  evening  at  the  S.'s  and  I  shall  cer- 
tainly accept  the  invitation.  S.,  I  think  I  told  you, 
is  the  First  Secretary  of  the  American  Legation  and  he 
has  three  children  just  about  the  age  of  ours.  Mrs. 
S.  met  Reeves  and  myself  at  the  Legation  the  other 
day  and  told  me  she  was  going  to  have  a  Christmas 
tree  for  the  children,  so  it  will  be  a  sort  of  imitation 
Christmas  for  me,  anyway,  off  here  in  China.  The 
Chinese  of  course  don't  have  any  Christmas,  and  things 
will  go  on  about  the  same  here,  just  as  if  it  were  not  a 
holiday. 

This,  by  the  way,  is  one  of  the  hardest  things  for  me 
to  get  used  to.  I  don't  mean  the  failure  to  celebrate 
Christmas,  but  the  continuous,  never-ending  work  of 
these  people,  day  in  and  day  out,  and  week  in  and  week 
out.  At  home  I  work  myself,  on  Sunday,  of  course,  but 
most  people  don't  and  the  day  is  entirely  different.  Here 
it  is  always  the  same,  never  a  change  from  one  year's  end 
to  another.  By  the  way,  I  am  going  to  hook  on  a  cable 
to  my  dispatch  the  day  before  Christmas,  telling  you  all 
Merry  Christmas.  That  will  be  news  right  from  the 
heart,  won't  it  ?  But  there  is  no  use  of  telling  you  about 
it  here,  seeing  that  you  will  have  read  it,  digested  it,  and 
forgotten  all  about  it  before  you  get  this  letter. 

Peking,  Sunday,  December  23,  being  the  second  day  of 
the  eleventh  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
H.  L  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

This  letter  will  have  to  answer  for  yesterday  and  to- 
day, too.  I  was  busy  all  day  yesterday  and  I  was  tired 
when  it  came  time  for  letter  writing.  I  didn't  have  a 
thing  new  to  tell  you.  There  was  no  mail  in  sight,  and 
so  I  just  went  to  bed  and  slept  the  sleep  of  the  just  on 
the  night  of  the  First  day  of  the  Eleventh  moon,  etc. 

The  news  to-day  is  very  good.  Late  this  afternoon  I 
heard  that  the  note  is  all  ready  for  delivery  to  the 
Chinese,  translations  all  made,  and  everything  ship-shape, 
and  it  is  to  be  presented  to-morrow.  You  couldn't  ask 
for  better  news  than  that,  could  you,  after  three  months — 
those  weary  months — of  waiting?    I  won't  believe  it  until 


208  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

the  note  is  actually  presented,  but,  at  the  same  time,  I 
think  that  this  time  it  is  true.  The  Chinese  have 
been  invited  to  come  around  and  meet  the  Ministers. 
Prince  Ching  will  be  there,  but  old  Li  Hung  Chang  is 
sick  in  bed,  and  he  won't  be  able  to  get  about.  He  eats 
the  most  awful  mess  of  Chinese  truck  you  ever  heard  of, 
and  tops  it  off  with  doughnuts  fried  in  grease,  and  so 
.full  of  it  that  if  you  squeeze  them  in  your  hands  it  runs 
out.  Then  he  suffers  from  indigestion,  and  he  wonders 
what  it  was  that  made  him  sick !  Imagine  a  man  eighty 
years  old  eating  such  awful  truck  as  that  and  living.  He 
must  have  a  constitution  of  iron. 

But  to  return  to  the  note.  I  have  made  a  copy  of  it, 
and  I  guess  you  have  it  by  this  time,  for  it  was  given  out 
in  Washington  the  day  it  was  signed,  and  it  is  my  best 
guess  that  the  terms  are  so  lenient  that  the  Chinese  will 
agree  to  them  in  less  than  two  days.  Now,  just  look 
back  in  the  files  of  The  Sun,  when  you  get  this  letter,  and 
see  if  I  am  not  right.  I  am  getting  to  know  something 
about  the  Chinese  character  and  the  Chinese  Govern- 
ment, and  it's  my  judgment  that  they  are  now  ready  to 
quit,  and  have  been  ready  to  do  so  for  a  long  time.  They 
will  hold  the  note  just  long  enough  to  "  save  their  face," 
and  they  will  give  in.  See  if  the  old  man's  judgment 
is  not  correct  for  once. 

Write  me  a  long  letter  about  the  little  ones,  and 
tell  me  how  they  are  getting  along.  Seems  to  me 
that  my  daughters  are  old  enough  to  write  me,  and  would 
do  it,  even  if  their  papa  hasn't  got  the  time  to  answer  their 
letters.  Jog  them  up  a  bit  on  that.  Tell  W.  that  Pop 
thinks  a  good  deal  about  him,  and  is  mighty  glad  he 
didn't  have  to  send  that  Mahatma  from  the  Desert  of 
Gobi  to  Brooklyn  to  catch  him  for  not  going  to  school, 
and  tell  C.  that  Fm  afraid  if  his  dad  stays  away 
much  longer,  he  will  be  so  big  that  he  won't  know  him. 

Peking,  December  25,  1900,  being  the  fourth  day  of 
the  eleventh  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

Christmas  day,  or  rather  Christmas  night,  and  I've  just 
got  back  from  the  dinner  I  told  yon  I  was  going  to  eat 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  209 

at  the  S's.  I  can  assure  you  it  wasn't  a  very 
bright  Christmas  day  for  me,  away  from  you  and  the 
little  ones,  and  with  a  guilty  conscience  because  I  had 
again  missed  a  day  in  writing.  However,  this  time  I  had 
a  very  good  excuse.  That  plaguey  note  was  presented, 
and  it  took  us  so  long  to  find  out  all  about  it,  and  there 
was  so  much  other  work  to  do,  that  I  simply  didn't  have 
time  to  write  more  than  a  line,  and  so  I  didn't  write  that 
because  I  couldn't  think  of  anything  satisfactory  that 
would  go  in  a  line.  But  now  we  are  dealing  in  the  events 
of  to-day  and  not  of  yesterday,  so  we'll  put  it  behind. 

I  called  on  General  Chaffee  this  morning,  and  we  smoked 
a  cigar  together,  and  wondered  together  what  our  respect- 
ive families  were  doing  by  way  of  celebrating  Christmas. 
After  that  I  went  out  on  a  still  hunt  for  the  news,  and 
got  a  mighty  little.  Then,  when  evening  came,  I  dressed 
up  and  with  Reeves  boarded  a  Peking  cart,  and  started 
for  the  S.'s.  I've  told  you  about  Peking  carts,  haven't 
I?  They  are  an  invention  of  Satan,  made  for  the 
sole  purpose,  I  think,  of  making  men  cuss  and  say  things 
that  will  consign  them  to  everlasting  perdition.  Now,  of 
all  the  carts  that  I  have  ever  been  in,  I  think  this  was 
the  joltiest,  the  jumpingest,  and  most  villainous.  The 
road  was  like  the  rocky  road  to  Dublin.  It  was  bumpity- 
bump,  kock,  jolt,  smash,  first  on  one  side  and  then  on  the 
other,  and  every  minute  or  two  we  thought  we  were  being 
driven  up  through  the  roof.  It  was  after  such  a  ride  as 
that  that  the  S.'s  home  was  reached ;  and  maybe  there 
wasn't  a  fervent  "  Thank  the  Lord  it's  over!  "  from  both 
of  us.  A  ride  in  a  cart  before  dinner  has  this  merit : 
It  is  hard  exercise.  It  jolts  down  everything  there  is  in 
you,  and  you  have  an  appetite  and  room  on  top  for  food 
that  a  week's  starvation  wouldn't  produce.  Besides 
Reeves  and  myself,  there  were  at  the  dinner  Mr.  and 
Mrs.  Conger,  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Rockhill,  and  Mr.  Cheshire, 
the  interpreter  of  the  Legation,  or  Chinese  Secretary,  I 
think,  is  his  title. 

There  isn't  much  to  tell  you  about  the  dinner.  It  was 
rather  slow.  It  was  just  a  good  family  dinner,  and  that's 
all  that  could  be  said  about  it.  Much  to  my  disappoint- 
ment there  were  no  children  there.    We  all  had  a  look  at 


210  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

the  Christmas  tree,  which  was  handsomely  trimmed,  and 
after  that,  and  after  dinner  was  over,  S.  trotted 
out  a  phonograph  and  it  sang  songs  to  us.  That  was  all. 
We  started  home  about  1 1  o'clock,  still  in  the  Peking  cart, 
and  here  we  are  the  worse  for  wear,  but  with  no  bones 
broken,  for  which  we  are  duly  thankful.  It's  long  after 
bedtime.  I  must  say  good-night,  hoping  you  all  had 
a  merrier  Christmas  than  Dad. 

Peking,  Wednesday,  December  26,  being  the  fifth 
day  of  the  eleventh  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the 
reign  of  Kuang  Hsu. 

I  think  I'll  move.  Now,  I  don't  claim  that  as  an  origi- 
nal expression.  It  seems  to  me  that  I've  heard  it  in  the 
neighborhood  of  Adelphi  Street,  sometimes.  But  it  goes 
here.  I  have  forgotten  now  whether  or  not  I  told  you  of 
Reeves'  promotion.  If  I  have,  repeating  it  won't  hurt. 
He  has  been  appointed  Military  Attache  of  the  Ameri- 
can Legation.  Well,  with  such  an  appointment,  of 
course,  he  wants  to  live  up  nearer  the  Legation,  and  so  do 
I.  It  would  lighten  my  work  a  good  deal  if  I  could  get 
a  place  to  live  up  nearer  where  the  news  is  than  the 
camp.  We  have  hunted  around  in  that  direction  and 
have  found  an  old  Boxer  temple,  built  something  like  250 
years  ago.  It  is  not  used  and  we  are  going  to  fit  it  up  and 
move  into  it — that  is,  we  are  going  to  move  into  one 
building  in  the  temple.  A  temple,  out  here,  as  you 
have  probably  gathered  from  my  previous  letters,  is  not 
like  a  temple  in  the  United  States.  There  it  is  one  build- 
ing. Here  it  is  always  a  big  "compound,"  with  a  wall 
around  it.  Inside  the  compound,  usually,  are  many 
buildings,  and  each  building  has  its  Josses  and  its  heathen 
paraphernalia.  The  Temple  o'  Agriculture,  for  instance^ 
where  our  troops  are  quartered  and  where  I  now  live,  is 
nearly  two  miles  square.  So  is  the  Temple  of  Heaven, 
which  is  across  the  Chienmaine  street  from  us.  The 
name  Temple  of  Heaven  of  course  gives  you  the  idea  of  a 
single  great  building,  but  there  are  no  less  than  twenty 
buildings  in  the  temple. 

Well,  to  get  back  to  this  Boxer  temple  that  is  to  be  the 
temporary  home  of  Reeves  and  myself.    It  is  situated  in 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  211 

Legation  Street,  which,  by  the  way,  is  known  to  the 
Chinese  as  the  Street  of  the  Subject  Nations,  not  far 
from  the  American  Legation,  During  the  siege  it  was 
the  chief  Boxer  headquarters  of  this  part  of  the  city. 
It  was  here  that  the  Boxers  dragged  the  people  whom 
they  suspected  of  being  Christians  and  went  through 
their  horrible  rites,  winding  up  with  a  so-called  trial  of 
the  accused.  The  trial  consisted  in  lighting  a  fire  in 
a  big  fire-pot  and  then  tearing  up  a  handful  of  paper  into 
small  bits.  When  the  fire  was  well  started  the  paper 
would  be  put  in  the  flames,  and,  of  course,  would  go  up 
in  smoke.  If  the  smoke  went  straight  up  the  victim  was 
not  guilty,  but  if  it  spread  out,  as  it  would,  of  course, 
when  there  was  the  slightest  draft,  the  victim  was  guilty, 
and  the  Boxers  fell  upon  and  killed  him  before  you  could 
say  Jack  Robinson.  Several  tens  of  Christians,  as  the 
Chinese  would  say,  were  killed  in  this  manner  by  the 
Boxers  in  this  temple  we  are  going  to  live  in. 

The  temple  was  originally  built,  I  am  told,  as  a  memo- 
rial to  the  Manchu  Prince  who  was  killed  in  the  fighting 
that  took  place  when  the  Manchus  conquered  the  Chinese 
250  or  more  years  ago.  For  many  years  it  was  the  cus- 
tom for  the  Emperor  to  appoint  certain  Princes  to  visit 
the  temple  frequently  and  to  worship  the  dead  Princes. 
That  died  out  and  then  the  worshiping  was  all  done 
there  by  the  Buddhist  priests.  Finally  it  was  given  up 
altogether  for  fifty  years.  Until  the  Boxers  took  it  as  a 
headquarters  it  was  not  used  at  all.  On  the  grounds  are 
the  entrances  of  two  tunnels  which  were  dug  by  the 
Boxers.  One  of  them  runs  to  the  wall  of  the  Tartar 
City,  where  the  Chinese  had  a  high  barricade,  from  be- 
hind which  they  fired  into  the  Legations  during  the 
siege.  They  could  reach  the  wall  and  the  barricade,  by 
means  of  the  tunnel,  without  exposing  themselves  to  the 
fire  of  the  people  in  the  Legations.  The  other  tunnel 
runs  almost  to  the  British  Legation,  and  it  was  un- 
doubtedly built  with  the  idea  of  putting  a  large  quantity 
of  explosive  in  the  far  cnrl,  when  that  end  was  under  the 
Legation,  where  the  people  were,  and  blowing  them  up. 
The  tunnel  was  not  completed  when  the  relief  came 
and  the  Boxers    were    put    to    rout.     After    the    re- 


212  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

lief  came  the  place  was  taken  possession  of  by 
W.  N.  P.,  the  Secretary  of  Li  Hung  Chang,  and  C.  D.  J., 
the  representative  of  the  Peking  Syndicate.  J.  has  fixed 
up  one  house  in  it  and  P.  has  fixed  up  one  for  himself 
and  another  for  his  library.  Reeves  and  I  will  fix  up 
another.  Of  course  I  won't  live  in  it  a  great  while, 
but  Reeves  may  spend  there  the  entire  four  years  he  is 
to  be  in  Peking. 

Well,  good-night  again,  and  good-bye  for  another  24 
hours. 

Peking,  December,  28,  1900,  being  the  seventh  day  of 
the  eleventh  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu, 

Missed  again,  yesterday.  I  tell  you  Fm  getting  care- 
less, don't  you  think  so  ?  I  was  busy  all  day  and  tired  all 
night,  so  I  didn't  write.  These  last  days  of  the  old  year 
are  busy  ones  for  me.  I  don't  remember  ever  having 
done  so  much  work  and  accomplished  so  little.  I  had  a 
long  talk  to-day  with  the  Rev.  A.  of  the  American 
3oard  of  Missions  on  missionary  looting.  He  assured 
me  he  had  done  nothing  for  which  he  was  ashamed,  and 
I  told  him  it  was  a  fine  thing  to  have  a  clear  conscience 
and  to  feel  that  way,  but  that  if  I  had  done  what  he  had 
done  I  should  feel  ashamed  of  myself,  and  I  let  him  chew 
on  that  a  while.  He  assured  me  that  he  liked  to  meet  a 
man  like  me,  who  would  speak  his  mind,  and  then  I 
offered  him  a  page  of  The  Sun  to  set  forth  the  missionary 
side  of  the  looting  of  Peking.  Offered  him,  mind  you !  I 
think  I  would  give  him  $500  cash  if  he  would  do  it. 

Well,  he  rose  to  the  bait  like  a  trout  and  swallowed  it, 
hook,  line,  and  sinker.  I  pinned  him  down  to  an  absolute 
promise,  and  it's  just  possible  that  he  will  keep  it.  Any- 
way Fm  going  to  keep  after  him  until  I  get  it  out  of  him 
if  I  can.  It  ought  to  be  a  great  good  story,  and  it  will  be 
quite  a  feather  in  my  cap  if  I  can  get  it.  He  is  the  boss 
American  missionary  out  here.  He  really  is  a  fine  man,  and 
during  the  siege  he  was  one  of  the  bravest.  Early  in  the 
siege,  when  the  small  guard  here  refused  to  go  to  Fung 
Chu  to  rescue  the  Christians  there,  he  went  alone  and  got 
them.     It  was  a  thirty-two  mile  ride  through  the  most 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  213 

dangerous  country  there  was.  It  was  what  happened 
after  the  siege  was  over,  when  the  looting  began,  that  I 
find  fault  with.  At  least,  I  don't  find  fault  with  it,  but 
it  seems  to  me  that  it  needs  explanation.  That's  what  I 
want  to  get  out  of  him  in  this  story — his  explanation. 

Peking,  December  28,  1900,  being  the  eighth  day  of  the 
eleventh  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
Kuang  Hsu. 

The  British  produced  a  play  to-day  in  the  Temple  of 
Heaven,  and  I  think  they  have  put  their  foot  in  it  up  to 
the  neck.  I  was  over  and  saw  it  this  afternoon,  and  it 
was  as  full  of  fun  as  it  could  stick,  but  was  the  most 
impolitic  thing  that  could  be  imagined,  and  I  miss  my 
guess  if  there  isn't  a  lot  of  trouble  over  it.  I  sent  a  long 
dispatch  about  it  this  afternoon,  purely  as  a  josh.  You 
see,  out  here  in  China,  the  personages  of  royalty  are 
sacred.  The  person  on  the  throne  is  the  Chinaman's  god. 
Just  imagine  a  god  of  any  kind  doing  a  song  and  dance 
for  a  houseful  of  foreign  devils,  the  song  being  as  fol- 
lows: 

"  Now  ever  since  I  came  to  court,  which  wasn't  yesterday, 
I've  done  exactly  as  I  chose  in  every  single  way. 
But  since  these  foreign  devils  showed  their  noses  in  the  state 
They've  got  the  impudence  to  say,  I'm  not  up  to  date. 
There  were  none  of   your  constitutional  ways,  red-tape  and 
quarter-page-margin  ways, 
When  the  late  lamented  Emperor  first  took  me  for  a  wife. 
Imagine  me  a-going  to  school,  to  learn  this  country  how  to 
rule, 
Just  fancy  me  on  an  official  stool,  at  my  time  of  life. 

"They've  stopped  the  good  old-fashioned  rule  by  which  I  used 
to  kill 
Or  mutilate  or  torture  those  who  dared  oppose  my  will. 
All  prisoners  now  are  tried  by  a  judge  and  jury  tame. 
But  somehow  Barrow  manages  to  kill  them  just  the  same. 
There  were  none  of  your  trial-by-jury  ways,  your  orderly-room 
court-martial  ways. 
When  the  late  lamented  Emperor  first  took  me  for  a  wife. 
Imagine  me  forbidden  to  speak,  just  fancy  me  before  a  beak, 
Fined  forty  shillings  or  so  a  week,  at  my  time  of  life. 

"  They've  introduced  in  far  Cathay  a  wonderful  machine, 
The  foreign  devils'  bicycle,  perhaps  you  all  have  seen. 


214  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

The  Mandarins  are  scandalized  because  I've  bought  a  pair, 
When  I  go   out  the  boys  exclaim,  What  ho  !     She   bumps  ! 

There's  air  ! 
There  were  none  of  your  bent-back  scorching  ways,  cinder- 
trail  and  road-record  ways, 
When  the  late  lamented  Emperor  first  took  me  for  a  wife. 
Just  fancy  me  a-doing  a  spurt  in  a  stuck-up  collar  and  a  fancy 
shirt  ; 
Imagine  me  in  a  rational  skirt  at  my  time  of  life, 

"  They'll  make  me  show  in  public  in  this  Chinese  fancy  dress, 
They'll  make  me  pose  for  artists  for  the  illustrated  press. 
And,  oh,  I  blush  to  think  of  it,  perhaps  these  devils  rude, 
Will  use  me  as  a  model  for  their  studies  from  the  nude. 
There  were  none  of  your  photographic  ways,  your  halfpenny- 
illustrated  ways, 
When,  the  late  lamented  Emperor  first  took  me  for  a  wife. 
Just  fancy  me  this  fine  weather,  posing  as  Venus  among  the 
heather. 
Imagine  me  in  the  altogether,  at  my  time  of  life." 

Now,  in  view  of  the  fact  that  the  powers  are  trying  to 
make  peace  with  the  rehct  of  the  late  lamented  Emperor, 
it  does  strike  me  that  is  going  a  few  steps  too  far,  and,  as 
I  said  before,  I'll  miss  my  guess  if  there  isn't  a  row  over 
it.  I  have  made  arrangements  to  get  the  manuscript  of 
the  piece,  and  I'm  going  to  send  it  all  on.  I  think  the 
production  of  this  play  was  the  chief  event  of  the  day,  so 
I  won't  bore  you  farther. 

Peking,  December  31,  1900,  being  the  tenth  day  of  the 
eleventh  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
Kuang  Hsu. 
I  think  it  is  going  to  be  a  very  wet  New  Year's  day 
around  this  camp.  General  Chaffee  has  issued  an  invita- 
tion to  everybody  who  lives  in  the  camp  to  visit  him  at  10 
o'clock  to-night,  and  to  stay  until  some  time  the  next 
century,  and  we  are  all  going  to  do  it.  I  suppose  that  if 
I  were  in  New  York  now,  I  would  be  at  this  very 
minute  sitting  in  Perry's  with  E.  R.,  waiting  to  hear 
the  bombardment  of  a  new  century  begin.  One  year 
ago  to-night  I  was  there  with  him.  We'll  have  a  cele- 
bration here,  no  doubt,  but  it  won't  be  in  it  with  what 
New  York  will  do.  It  is  pretty  near  10  o'clock  now,  and 
I  want  to  get  this  letter  finished  in  time  to  be  on  hand 
when  the  fun  begins. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  215 

Of  course,  in  China,  this  is  not  the  new  year.  It  doesn't 
come  here  until  the  first  of  the  first  moon,  which  is  about 
February  20.  The  Chinese,  however,  recognize  our  new 
year  in  this :  They  pay  New  Year's  calls,  and  all  Chinese 
servants  are,  on  New  Year's  Day,  entitled  to  a  present 
equal  to  one-half  of  a  full  month'-s  wages.  No  matter  if 
the  servant  came  to  work  only  two  or  three  days  before 
the  New  Year,  it  is  the  custom  to  pay  him  half  a  month's 
wages  extra.  Presents  of  this  kind  in  China  are  regulated 
entirely  by  custom,  and  when  a  Chinaman  goes  to  work 
for  you  for  a  certain  wage  he  counts  on  receiving  the 
regular  gratuity  just  as  certainly  as  he  counts  on  receiv- 
ing his  wages.  To  fail  to  follow  the  custom  is  unpardon- 
able. Your  servant  doesn't  for  an  instant  imagine  that 
you  are  too  parsimonious  to  make  the  gift,  but  he  lays  it 
to  your  ignorance  of  the  custom,  and  here  ignorance  of 
custom  is  absolutely  unpardonable.  You  "  lose  face " 
with  the  servant.  He  no  longer  respects  you,  and  in  all 
probability  he  will  refuse  to  work  for  you  any  longer,  not 
because  you  don't  pay  him  well,  but  because  you  are  ig- 
norant and  have  "  lost  face."  Well,  we  are  not  going  to 
"  lose  face  "  around  this  house,  and  we  have  the  custom- 
ary presents  in  bright  new  dollars  to  give  to  the  heathen 
■when  they  come  in  in  the  morning  to  pay  their  respects. 

I  said  that  the  Chinese  recognized  our  New  Year  by 
making  New  Year's  calls.  That  is  not  strictly  accurate, 
for  they  do  not  make  the  calls  on  New  Year's  Day.  What 
they  do  on  that  day  is  to  send  around  their  cards  and 
tell  on  what  day  they  will  call  to  pay  their  respects.  I 
will  enclose  you  a  Chinese  visiting  card  in  this  letter.  I 
got  it  this  afternoon  from  a  Chinaman  I  have  helping 
me  with  the  Chinese  news.  He  sent  word  that  he  would 
call  on  Saturday  and  enclosed  his  card,  which  is  a  regu- 
lar-sized Chinese  visiting  card,  but  is  only  half  as  large  as 
the  card  an  official  carries.  It  is  something  of  a  curiosity, 
I  think.  I  hear  the  band  playing,  and  I  guess  I  had  better 
wind  up  this  letter  if  I  want  to  be  in  and  see  the  fun. 

Peking,  January  i,  1901,  being  the  eleventh  day  of  the 

eleventh  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  Kuang  Hsu. 
January  once  again.     It  surely  was  a  blow-out  that 


216  ORDERED    TOCHINA 

General  Chaffee  gave  to  welcome  the  New  Year,  and  it 
was  participated  in  by  every  officer  in  the  camp.  The 
party  did  not  break  up  until  6  o'clock  this  morning.  That 
was  some  time  in  the  new  century  with  a  vengeance, 
wasn't  it?  He  had  a  crowd  of  Chinese  jugglers  to  start 
the  fun  in  the  early  evening,  and  by  the  time  they  had  fin- 
ished their  stunts  everybody  was  prepared  to  entertain 
himself  and  everybody  else.  I  fear  even  that  some  of 
them  forgot  they  were  in  China  and  not  in  the  United 
States ;  not  I,  of  course ;  I  have  become  so  good  out  here 
that  the  wings  are  growing  out  of  my  shoulder-blades, 
and  you  will  hardly  know  me  when  I  get  home.  But 
some  of  the  crowd  certainly  did  let  loose  and  make  things 
hum. 

These  jugglers  I  mentioned  were  about  the  cleverest 
people  in  that  line  I  have  ever  seen.  I'd  like  to  tell  you 
all  about  them,  but  I  fear  it  would  not  be  interesting. 
Tricks  are  things  that  are  good  to  see,  but  impossible  to 
tell  of  interestingly.  But  there  was  one  worth  the  telling. 
One  of  the  jugglers  was  a  boy,  scarcely  fifteen  years  old. 
He  started  in  by  making  mystic  passes,  and  then  laid  a 
table-cloth  down  on  the  floor,  perfectly  flat  and  smooth. 
He  seized  the  middle  of  it  and  lifted  it  up,  and  there  was 
a  bowl  of  water  under  it.  Before  we  had  a  chance  to 
think  where  it  had  come  from  he  produced  another  just 
as  mysteriously.  It  was  larger  than  the  first  and  was 
swimming  full.  Then  he  conjured  up  a  third  and  a 
fourth,  each  bigger  than  the  last,  and  finally  he  turned  a 
complete  handspring  and  came  up  smiling  with  a  regular 
wash-bowl,  full  of  water.  The  bowl  was  half  as  big  as 
he  was  himself.  This  was  all  right  in  front  of  our  eyes, 
and  not  one  of  us  was  able  to  find  where  the  bowls  came 
from,  or  how  the  water  got  in  them.  I  think  the  young- 
ster could  make  his  fortune  with  that  trick  alone  in  the 
United  States. 

Well,  after  the  juggler  got  through,  there  was  a  lot  of 
song-singing.  At  exactly  midnight,  there  came  a  dead 
silence  for  an  instant^  and  the  band  struck  up  "  The 
Star-Spangled  Banner."  Every  man  stood  up  with 
bowed  head  and  sang.  I  tell  you,  I  don't  believe  the  old 
lune  ever  was  better  sung  or  was  ever  more  inspiring. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  217 

It  made  tears  come  to  everybody's  eyes,  and  there  was 
that  creepy  feehng  up  and  down  the  back  that  comes 
when  one  is  all  worked  up  with  emotion.  Flags  were 
waved  and  the  chorus  rang  out — "  The  Star-Spangled 
Banner,  in  triumph  shall  wave.  O'er  the  land  of  the  free 
and  the  home  of  the  brave."  Over  and  over  again,  the 
song  was  sung,  and  everybody  felt  better  and  prouder 
because  he  was  an  American. 

This  was  followed  by  a  bit  of  sentiment  in  the  shape 
of  "  Sweethearts  and  Wives,"  and  that  was  sung  through 
three  or  four  times.  One  of  the  youngster  officers  made 
a  bad  break  about  that  moment  by  offering  this  toast : 
"  Here's  to  our  sweethearts  and  wives — may  they  never 
meet."  Well,  most  of  the  crowd  were  married  men,  and 
in  two  shakes  of  a  lamb's  tail  that  youngster  was  stand- 
ing on  his  head  in  a  snowbank  outside  the  door. 

There  were  dozens  of  songs  and  a  jolly  good  time.  All 
day  to-day  the  General  has  had  open  house  for  all  Ameri- 
cans, and  the  fifty  or  sixty  Americans  in  Peking  have  all 
been  to  see  him.  This  afternoon  I  called  at  the  Legation 
and  paid  my  respects  to  the  Minister  and  his  folks,  and 
to  the  S.'s  and  Count  von  Waldersee.  The  Field 
Marshal  was  at  S.'s  place,  and  I  had  a  broken-Eng- 
lish chat  with  him.  All  told,  it  hasn't  been  such  a  blue 
New  Year  as  you  might  imagine  for  one  far  away  from 
home. 

Peking,  January  3,  1901,  being  the  thirteenth  day  of 
the  eleventh  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
Kuang  Hsu. 

Yesterday  was  another  one  of  those  days  when  I  didn't 
write.  I  got  the  news  from  Singan  Fu,  where  the 
Court  is,  that  everything  looked  favorable  for  the  signing 
of  the  treaty,  and  it  kept  me  busy  hustling,  so  when  night 
came  I  didn't  feel  like  writing,  and,  there  being  no  mail,  I 
didn't  do  it.  Then,  there  was  another  event  that  made  me 
feel  even  better  than  the  news  from  Singan  Fu.  That 
was,  I  got  two  letters  from  "  Home,  Sweet  Home."  I 
read  them  over  two  or  three  times,  and  maybe  I  didn't 
enjoy  them.  I  went  around  the  proudest  man  in  Peking, 
I  can  tell  you.    Oh,  by  the  way,  dunderhead  that  I  am, 


218  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

I  do  believe  that  I  forgot  to  tell  you  that  on  the  26th  day 
of  December  at  2  p.  m.,  I  got  your  cable  wishing  me  a 
Merry  Christmas,  That  was  absolutely  the  best  news 
I  had  had  since  the  day  I  left  home.  It  was  news  straight 
from  home,  and  told  me  that  you  were  all  well  and  that 
you  had  a  thought  of  the  absent  one.  I  certainly  must 
be  going  daft  not  to  have  told  you  about  it  in  the  letter  I 
wrote  you  that  day,  for  I  was  full  up  to  the  neck  with 
the  subject,  not  only  because  of  the  receipt  of  the  tele- 
gram, but  because  of  the  row  I  had  with  the  cable  com- 
pany over  the  cable  I  sent  you.  I  put  your  cable  on  the 
end  of  one  of  my  dispatches.  It  began  "  Madam."  The 
next  day  I  got  a  dispatch  from  the  manager  of  the  cable 
company  saying,  "  Your  cable  Sun  New  York  Dec. 
24  words  Madam  Christmas  greeting  not  intended  for 
publication  please  explain."  In  sending  press  messages, 
I  must  tell  you,  to  get  the  reduced  rate  nothing  must  be 
included  in  the  message  except  what  is  intended  for 
publication.  Well,  I  cogitated  over  this  telegram  from 
the  cable  company  a  whole  day.  I  was  mad  clear 
through.  Here  I  had  been,  giving  them  business 
amounting  to  maybe  a  thousand  dollars  a  day  for  months, 
and  they  meant  to  kick  over  three  words !  Finally  I 
concocted  this  diplomatic  answer :  "  Words  '  Madam 
Christmas  greeting  '  in  my  message  to  The  Sun,  Dec. 
24  were  intended  for  The  Sun,  and  The  Sun  could  print 
them  if  they  wanted  to."  Then  I  chalked  down  one  more 
against  the  Cable  Company  in  my  book.  I'll  get  square 
with  them  some  day.  I  haven't  heard  a  word  from  them 
since,  and  I  trust  that  my  explanation  was  satisfactory. 
I'm  sure  I  had  no  objection  to  The  Sun's  printing  the 
words  if  it  wanted  to.     Had  you? 

Peking,  January  4,  1901,  being  the  fourteenth  day  of 

the  eleventh  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 

Kuang  Hsu. 

Some  days  ago  I  enclosed  in  a  letter  a  Chinese  visiting 

card.     Calling  on  Mr.   P.  this  afternoon  he  gave  me  a 

number,  which  I  enclose  in  this  letter.     I  think  they  are 

curious  enough  to  please  the  girls.     I  want  them  to  save 

and  not  destroy  them,  for  they  are  the  signatures  of 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  219 

some  really  famous  men.  First  of  all,  there  is  the  card 
of  Li  Hung  Chang-,  who  is  by  all  odds  the  greatest  living 
Chinaman,  and  who  is  known  by  the  world  at  large  better 
than  any  other  Chinaman  ever  was.  Dr.  Martin,  the 
missionary,  once  wanted  a  favor,  and  he  called  on  Li 
Hung  Chang  to  get  it.  Li  did  not  favor  the  proposition 
at  first,  and  the  two  got  to  exchanging  compliments  as 
is  the  Chinese  custom.  Dr.  Martin  finally  said,  "  Your 
Excellency,  Europeans  know  but  two  Chinese  names — 
one  is  that  of  Confucius  and  the  other  is  Li  Hung 
Chang."  Dr.  Martin,  needless  to  say,  got  what  he  was 
after. 

Well,  the  first  of  this  lot  of  visiting  cards  is  that  of  Li 
Hung  Chang.  The  next  is  that  of  Prince  Su.  Prince 
Su  is  the  Eighth  Prince  of  the  Iron  Helmet.  At  the 
beginning  of  this  present  Manchu  dynasty  there  were 
eight  Princes,  and  it  was  decreed  that  the  title  should 
descend  to  the  eldest  son  each  time.  It  is  not  so  with 
other  titles  in  China.  A  man  may  have  the  highest  title 
in  the  gift  of  the  Empire.  When  he  dies  his  son  does 
not  inherit  that  title,  but  the  one  next  lower,  and  the  son 
of  this  son  inherits  the  one  next  lower,  and  so  on.  In  a 
few  generations  the  lowest  is  reached  and  then  there  is  no 
title  at  all.  So  it  is  said  with  truth  that  the  man  who  is 
doing  the  most  menial  service  for  you  may  be  the  direct 
descendant  of  a  family  of  Kings,  and  so  it  goes,  except 
with  the  descendants  of  the  eight  original  Princes,  or 
Princes  of  the  Iron  Helmet,  as  they  are  called.  Prince 
Su,  whose  card  is  enclosed,  was  the  most  pro-foreign  of 
all  the  royal  Princes  during  the  trouble  last  Summer. 
His  Fu,  which  is  Chinese  for  Palace,  is  directly  opposite 
the  British  Legation.  At  a  critical  moment  during  the 
siege  he  left  it  and  let  the  native  Christians  take  refuge 
in  it.  His  kindness  was  reciprocated  by  the  looting  of  the 
place.  His  silverware  was  obtained  by  Sir  Claude 
MacDonald,  the  British  Minister.  For  a  long  time  after 
I  came  to  Peking,  Prince  Su  lived  in  one  room.  Some 
time  ago,  through  Dr.  Morrison,  some  of  the  silverware 
that  was  taken  was  returned  to  him,  and  by  selling  it  he 
has  been  getting  along  fairly  well.  Of  course,  when 
things  settle  down  he  will  get  together  wealth  again. 


220  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

The  third  card  is  that  of  Chang  Yi  Mow.  Chang  is 
the  Imperial  Director  of  Railways,  etc.,  for  the  North  of 
China.  He  lives  in  Tien  Tsin.  During  the  siege  he  was 
arrested  at  the  instigation  of  his  business  enemies  and 
they  tried  to  have  him  shot,  but  his  life  was  saved  through 
the  intervention  of  an  American  named  Hoover.  Chang's 
name  is  printed  on  blue  paper.  The  reason  for  this  is 
that  he  is  in  full  mourning.  His  mother  died  a  year  ago 
and  since  then  his  cards  have  been  like  the  one  enclosed. 
When  he  stops  full  mourning  the  blue  comes  off  and 
yellow  is  substituted.  The  next  card  will  show  you  what 
it  looks  like  then.  The  card  with  yellow  is  that  of 
Tshing  Seng.  Who  he  is  I  do  not  know,  and  I  enclose 
it  only  to  show  you  what  the  half-mourning  card  looks 
like. 

The  next  card  is  that  of  Wang  Ping  Sun.  He  is  the 
grandson  of  the  Cabinet  Minister,  Wong,  and  is  a  rising 
young  Chinaman.  The  last  of  the  bunch  is  another 
official,  named  Li  Ching  Mai.  He  is  the  head  man  of  one 
of  the  big  Chinese  boards.  That's  all  that  I  can  tell  you 
about  him. 

No  news  to-day,  so  good-bye  for  another  day. 

January  6,  1901,  being  the  sixteenth  day  of  the 
eleventh  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
Kuang  Hsu. 

Another  miss  yesterday,  which  I  am  sure  you  won't 
mind  when  you  hear  the  good  news  of  to-day ;  of  course 
you  have  already  read  it,  but  that  doesn't  matter,  I'll  tell  it 
anyway.  The  Chinamen  have  agreed  to  the  terms  of  the 
note  presented  by  the  powers,  and  they  have  directed 
their  two  peace  commissioners,  Li  Hung  Chang  and 
Prince  Ching,  to  sign  the  note.  This  is  the  beginning  of 
the  end,  and  it's  now  possible  to  permit  the  thought  of 
coming  home  sometime  to  enter  my  head.  It  hasn't  been 
possible  before  this.  Of  course  the  Chinese  would  have 
had  to  agree  to  the  time  that  the  powers  fixed  anyway, 
but  it  was  in  their  power  to  delay  matters  an  awful 
length  of  time  if  they  wanted  to  do  it.  I  felt  certain  that 
they  would  not  do  that,  and  that  they  would  accept  the 
terms  that  were  presented,  within  a  short  time,  as  I  told 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  221 

you  in  my  last  letter,  the  day  that  the  note  was  presented 
to  them.  This  "  vindicates  "  my  judgment,  doesn't  it?  I 
think  I'll  have  to  go  into  the  prophet  business,  but  I'm 
afraid  there  isn't  any  money  in  it. 

The  fact  that  the  Chinese  have  agreed,  provides  an- 
other source  of  satisfaction  to  me  too.  I  got  the  news 
first  and  sent  it  several  hours  ahead  of  anybody  else. 
There'll  be  more  wailing  in  the  camp  of  the  enemy,  I'm 
thinking.  They  have  had  two  or  three  pretty  hard 
knocks  lately,  and  I'm  fixing  to  give  them  some  more. 
They  have  got  my  dander  up  by  watching  what  I  do.  I 
never  liked  to  be  watched.  By  "  they  "  I  mean  the  Asso- 
ciated Press  and  that  crowd.  They  really  spend  so  much 
time  trying  to  find  out  what  I'm  doing,  that  they  miss  most 
of  the  good  things  that  come  along. 

Well,  I  must  hurry  off  now ;  I  have  to  see  some  of  the 
Ministers  and  do  some  other  work,  so  I'll  say  good-bye, 
again. 

Peking,  January  7,  1901,  being  the  seventeenth  day  of 
the  eleventh  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
Kuang  Hsu. 

Let's  go  back  to  Chinese  characteristics  again,  just  for 
a  day.  To  tell  you  the  truth,  I'm  stumped,  to-day,  for 
any  other  subject.  At  the  same  time,  my  smelling  organs 
have  been  most  deeply  offended.  They  are  always  most 
deeply  offended  in  this  northern  city,  but  I  don't  think 
that  I  ever  paid  so  much  attention  to  the  matter  as  I  did 
to-day,  and,  strange  as  it  may  seem  to  you,  it  was  not  the 
filth  with  which  the  city  reeks  that  was  responsible,  but 
the  food  that  was  being  prepared  for  Chinese  consump- 
tion along  the  street. 

At  least  four  out  of  five  Chinese  eating-places,  so  far  as 
Peking  is  concerned,  are  in  the  street.  All  that  is  needed 
to  make  a  first-class  Chinese  restaurant  in  this  town  is  a 
big  iron  pot  with  two  stones  to  set  it  on,  a  board  for  a 
table  with  two  stones  to  put  that  on,  and  three  or  four 
diminutive  three-legged  stools.  The  stools  are  not  six 
inches  above  the  ground  and  how  anybody  can  sit  on 
them  without  getting  a  permanent  case  of  cramps  I  can't 
for  the  life  of  me  imagine.     Then  there  must  also  be  half 


222  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

a  dozen  cups  or  saucers.  There  are  no  knives  or  forks, 
for  every  Chinaman  who  can  afford  it  carries  his  own 
chopsticks,  and  if  he  can't  afford  it  he  eats  with  his 
fingers.  This  rule  is  invariable.  I  have  already  told 
you  what  a  Chinaman  looks  like  when  he  is  eating,  if  you 
remember  the  letter  I  wrote  you  on  the  ship  coming  over 
here,  and  that  is  not  what  offended  my  smellers  to-day — 
it  was  the  cooking. 

The  first  requisite  of  the  actual  cooking  is  a  bowlful  of 
grease  and  the  next  is  garlic.  As  for  the  rest,  the 
handiest  dog  or  a  piece  of  mule  or  a  cat — any  old  thing 
of  that  sort  will  do.  But  whether  it  is  to  be  boiled  or 
fried  the  grease  must  be  used  and  the  garlic  must  be 
used.  After  the  stuff  has  been  cooking  a  sufficient 
length  of  time  the  restaurant-keeper  is  ready  to  do  busi- 
ness, and  the  people  flock  around  and  squat  on  these 
little  stools  and  eat.  These  improvised  restaurants  are 
stretched  all  along  the  main  streets  of  the  city  and  they 
smell  to  heaven,  I  assure  you.  They  are  worse  than  the 
dust  of  Peking.  They  are  worse  than  anything  any- 
where. They  nauseate  you.  Even  an  old  Pekingese  like 
myself  gets  sick  at  the  stomach  when  he  gets  a  full-sized 
whiff. 

But  meat  fried  or  boiled  is  not  the  only  thing  these 
restaurants  deal  in.  There  are  cakes  simply  wonderful 
to  contemplate.  You  have  heard  me  speak  of  the 
"  sinkers  "  they  have  at  Hitchcock's  and  Dennett's  and 
Dolan's  and  other  high-toned  restaurants  in  New  York. 
Well,  "  honest  Injun,"  the  worst  sinker  that  was  ever 
produced  in  any  of  those  places  would  take  wings  and 
fly  away  if  it  were  put  beside  one  of  these  leather-like 
productions  of  a  Peking  street  restaurant.  They  look 
like  doormats  that  one  has  been  wiping  his  feet  on,  they 
feel  like  the  pneumatic  tire  of  a  bicycle,  and  Heaven  and 
the  Chinese  only  know  what  they  taste  like.  I've  no 
doubt  that  as  doormats  in  America  they  would  last  a  life- 
time. I  tMnk  they  might  even  be  a  good  substitute  for 
asphalt  pavement.  I  bought  a  cake  one  day  and  took  it 
home  with  me,  not  to  eat — oh  no! — but  just  to  look  at. 
Reeves  and  I  used  it  to  drive  nails  with  after  it  had  dried 
out.     Then  we  were  going  to  hang  it  up  on  the  wall  as  a 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  223 

decoration,  but  we  could  get  no  bit  sharp  enough  to  bore 
through  it.  Finally  we  took  it  out  and  scaled  it  away 
over  the  roof.  It  struck  on  its  edge  on  the  other  side  of 
the  house  and  stuck  up  in  the  ground  and  there  it  is  yet. 
You  may  think  this  is  an  exaggeration,  but  it  is  not.  It's 
a  solemn  fact.  If  you  don't  believe  it  you  can  come  out 
here  to  the  Temple  of  Agriculture  and  we  will  show  it  to 
you.  If  you  would  like  to  have  a  genuine  souvenir  of 
China,  just  let  me  know  and  I  will  bring  you  one  of  these 
cakes. 

There  is  nothing  to  tell  you  about  the  news  of  to-day, 
so  I'll  let  you  off  now. 

City  of  Peking,  China,  January  9,  1901,  the  same 
being  the  nineteenth  day  of  the  eleventh  month  of 
the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of  Kuang  Hsu. 

Bad  luck,  bad  luck,  bad  luck !  Also  good  luck.  The 
Dowager  Empress  has  gone  back  on  what  she  said,  and 
now  she  doesn't  want  Li  Hung  Chang  and  Prince  Ching 
to  sign  the  peace  treaty.  That's  the  bad  luck.  The  good 
luck  is  that  I  got  the  news  first  and  sent  it  off,  and  I 
don't  believe  any  of  my  esteemed  contemporaries  know 
of  it  even  yet.     If  you  are  interested  I  will  tell  you. 

It  appears  that  down  in  Hankow  there  is  a  mutton- 
head  of  a  Viceroy  named  Chang  Chih  Tung.  He  is  the 
great  rival  of  Li  Hung  Chang,  and  he  saw  in  these 
negotiations  the  chance  to  give  Li  a  black  eye,  so,  after 
Li  and  Ching  had  advised  the  Dowager  that  the  only 
salvation  for  China  was  in  the  acceptance  of  the  terms  of 
the  note,  and  after  the  Dowager  had  agreed  that  that 
was  so  and  had  telegraphed  the  Commission  to  go  ahead 
and  sign,  Chang  sets  out  and  memorializes  the  Dowager 
to  the  effect  that  the  terms  are  too  severe  and  that  she 
shouldn't  agree  to  them  at  all.  Of  course  she  never 
wanted  to  agree  to  them  and  she  only  did  it  because 
she  believed  that  she  had  to  do  it.  When  she  got  the 
tommyrot  that  Chang  Chih  Tung  sent  she  said  right 
away,  "  That's  so,"  and  off  she  telegraphed  the  two 
Commissioners  not  to  sign.  They  found  out  what 
Chang  Chih  Tung  had  done  the  moment  they  got  the 
orders,  and  they  sent  back  to  the  Dowager  a  scorching 


224  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

telegram,  telling  her  that  Chang  Chih  Tung  was  acting 
like  a  school-boy  in  his  first  new  pair  of  pants,  and  that 
she  couldn't  say  one  day  that  she'd  accept  a  thing  and  the 
next  day  take  it  back. 

Right  there  the  matter  rests.  The  note  is  not  signed, 
and  it  won't  be  for  some  days.  It  will  be,  finally,  of 
course,  but  the  Dowager  must  be  brought  to  her  senses 
before  anything  can  be  done,  and  nobody  knows  how 
long  it  will  take  to  do  that.  I  hope  it's  a  quick  job,  I'm 
sure,  but  I  fear  that  it  will  not  be,  and  with  this  bad  news 
I'll  quit  you  for  the  day, 

Peking,  January  lo,  1901,  being  the  twentieth  day  of 
the  eleventh  month  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign 
of  Kuang  Hsu. 

I  learned  something  new  to-day  on  the  Chinese  eating 
question  and  the  Chinese  servant  question.  It  is  that 
Chinese  servants  feed  themselves.  They  don't  eat 
European  food  at  all — that  is  to  say,  they  contract  not  to 
eat  it,  though  I  guess  they  do  when  they  get  a  chance. 
When  you  make  your  bargain  with  a  Chinese  servant 
it  is  for  so  much  money  for  his  work  and  he  feeds  him- 
self. Usually  a  part  of  the  bargain  is  so  much  rice  a 
month.  Our  household  has  been  run  that  way  all  along, 
but  I  didn't  know  it  until  to-day. 

We  pay  our  boy  so  much  money  every  month,  and  then 
we  give  him  100  pounds  of  rice  in  addition.  He  eats 
rice  three  times  a  day.  All  Chinese  do,  except  those  who 
eat  at  the  street  restaurants  I  told  you  about  the  other 
day,  and  I  don't  know  but  that  they  do,  too.  Rice 
costs  about  2  cents  a  pound,  so  the  boy  gets  $2  a  month 
in  addition  to  the  amount  paid  to  him  as  wages.  Any- 
thing he  has  besides  his  rice  he  must  buy  himself.  But 
rice  is  his  staple.  He  can  live  on  that  with  nothing  else, 
and  so  the  master  gives  him  that.  When  the  master 
doesn't  give  rice  he  must  pay  its  equivalent  in  money, 
and  the  usual  charge  is  $3  a  month,  so  he  saves  money 
by  buying  the  rice.  This  is  the  case  all  over  China. 
It  is  an  interesting  state  of  afiFairs,  is  it  not?  It  seems  to 
me  that  the  system  is  better  than  ours,  where  the  servants 
eat  from  the  master's  table,  and  very  often  get  better 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  225 

food  than  the  master  or  mistress,  unless  a  close  watch  is 
kept. 

There  is  nothing  new  in  the  edict  line  to-day.  The 
Dowager  is  still  sticking  to  her  order  not  to  sign  the  note, 
and  she  has  not  answered  the  telegram  of  Li  and  Ching. 
Perhaps  she  hasn't  got  it  yet,  for  the  telegraph  service 
between  here  and  the  Court  is  miserable.  Let  us  hope 
hard  that  she  will  get  her  senses  back  quickly. 

Peking,  January  12,  1901,  being  the  twenty-second 
day  of  the  eleventh  month  of  the  26th  year  of  the 
reign  of  Kuang  Hsu,  and  the  145th  letter  I  have 
written  you  since  I  left  home,  according  to  my 
account. 

The  Dowager  is  growing  testy  in  her  old  age.  Yester- 
day she  telegraphed  to  Li  Hung  Chang  and  Ching, 
positively  forbidding  them  to  sign  the  note  demanded  by 
the  powers.  It  was  just  a  repetition  of  what  she  sent 
the  other  day,  only  it  was  stronger.  The  dispatch  came 
pretty  late  in  the  afternoon  and  it  kept  me  hustling  so 
that  I  didn't  write  you  yesterday  afternoon.  Put  down 
another  black  mark,  will  you?  I  got  two  more  letters 
from  you  to-day,  and  one  from  John  Ward.  I 
don't  know  how  they  got  here,  for  I  understand  that 
mail  is  neither  coming  nor  going,  but  I  found  them  at 
the  Legation  this  morning.  I  didn't  ask  any  questions 
before  I  read  them,  and  I  was  so  satisfied  and  happy  after 
I  read  them  that  I  didn't  think  to  ask.  Needless  to  talk' 
about  your  letters  at  all.  If  you  only  knew  what  wel- 
come visitors  they  are  you  would  write  more  of 
them.  I  always  feel  better  for  a  whole  week  after  I  get 
one. 

Ward's  letter  was  cheerful.  He  told  me  I  was  doing 
great  work  and  all  that,  and  I  guess  he  joshed  me  to  the 
very  best  of  his  ability.  He  also  told  me  that  he  had 
written  you  about  the  word  "  well  "  I  had  added  to  one 
of  my  telegrams,  for  your  information  of  course,  and 
that  pleased  me  very  much.  In  your  letter  you  said  you 
had  received  his  letter,  so  he  must  have  been  telling  the 
truth  about  that.  I  hope  he  was  about  the  other.  But 
whether  the  work  is  good  or  bad,  it  is  mighty  unsatis- 


226  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

factory  to  the  man  who  is  doing  it,  because  he  never  gets 
a  chance  to  see  what  he's  doing  or  to  know  whether  he's 
doing  the  other  fellow,  which  is,  after  all,  one  of  the 
chief  items. 

To-morrow  Reeves  and  I  move  into  the  Boxer  Temple 
I  told  you  about  the  other  day,  and,  as  everything  will 
be  torn  up,  I  guess  you  will  have  to  chalk  down  one  more 
black  mark,  for  I  shall  not  be  able  to  write,  so  this  time 
I'll  say  good-bye  for  forty-eight  hours  instead  of  twenty- 
four,  and  I  hope  that  by  that  time  the  old  lady  Empress 
will  have  sent  some  good  news. 

Peking,  January  15,  1901,  being  the  twenty-fifth  day 
of  the  eleventh  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign 
of  Kuang  Hsu. 
Moving  is  a  heap  sight  bigger  job  than  I  thought  it 
was,  and  it  takes  two  days  instead  of  one  to  get  things 
into  such  condition  that  it  is  possible  to  think,  let  alone 
write.  We  are  getting  ship-shape  now,  though,  and  we 
shall  soon  be  in  fine  trim,  I  think.  The  new  home  is  a 
wonder,  if  you  forget  what  happened  in  it  during  the 
siege,  and  I  guess  we  can  do  that.  At  any  rate,  I  hadn't 
thought  of  it  until  just  this  minute,  when  I  sat  down  to 
write.  One  of  the  advantages  of  the  place  is  a  fine 
Chinese  reference  library,  one  of  the  best  in  China,  I  am 
told.  Whenever  it  is  necessary  to  look  up  any  matter 
the  book  to  do  it  is  right  there  at  hand.  Another  ad- 
vantage is  a  closer  acquaintance  with  Mr.  W.  N.  P., 
the  Secretary  of  Li  Hung  Chang.  I  am  depending 
largely  upon  him  now  for  my  Chinese  news,  and,  living 
right  in  the  compound  with  him,  I  think  that  if  anything 
in  the  line  of  Chinese  news  gets  away  from  me  it  will  be 
my  own  fault. 

Reeves  and  I  have  had  the  building  in  which  we  live 
divided  into  four  rooms — two  bedrooms,  an  office,  and  a 
big  dining  and  sitting  room.  We  have  about  twice  as 
much  room  as  we  had  at  the  camp.  In  addition  to  that 
we  have  sunlight  all  day,  which  of  course  is  a  fine  thing. 
All  the  front  of  the  house  is  made  of  glass.  The  rest  of 
it  is  of  brick.  I  only  wish  you  could  be  here  to  see  it. 
Really,  it  is  not  half  a  bad  place,  and  for  Peking  it  is  a 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  227 

palace,  almost  as  fine  as  any  that  our  friends  the  mis- 
sionaries have. 

Well,  that  good  news  I  told  you  would  come 
has  come  again.  The  Dowager  has  got  back  her 
sense,  and  has  again  issued  an  edict  directing  the  Com- 
missioners to  sign  the  demands  the  powers  have  made. 
She's  a  cheerful  sort  of  an  idiot,  isn't  she?  Again  I  got 
first  news  of  the  thing,  and  I  hustled  it  off  ahead  of 
everybody.  It  was  nearly  noon,  though — that  is,  mid- 
night in  New  York — and  I'm  afraid  it  didn't  get  through 
in  time  for  the  paper.  It  is  one  of  those  things,  how- 
ever, that  is  just  as  good  the  next  day,  so  it  is  all  right 
anyway. 

The  two  Chinese  commissioners  won't  lose  any  time, 
this  time,  in  getting  their  names  down  on  the  document. 
They  have  already  started  in  to  sign  and  then  the  great 
Seal  of  State  will  have  to  be  put  on.  Prince  Ching  went 
to  the  Forbidden  City  this  afternoon  to  get  that  job  done. 
The  Great  Seal  is  one  of  the  things  in  the  Forbidden 
City  that  hasn't  been  looted.  It  is  always  kept  under 
lock  and  key.  To  get  it  the  Prince  had  to  go  to  the  city 
and  call  up  the  Superintendent  of  the  Imperial  House- 
hold. Then  the  Superintendent  of  the  Imperial  House- 
hold had  to  go  with  him  to  the  head  concubine  of  the  late 
Emperor.  She  is  the  custodian  of  the  Key.  Together 
they  went  to  the  room  where  the  Great  Seal  was,  and,  in 
the  presence  of  a  guard,  they  opened  the  room  and  then 
the  seal  box  in  the  room.  There  was  the  Great  Seal.  It 
had  to  used  right  in  that  room.  Under  no  circumstances 
could  it  be  taken  out,  so  a  copy  of  the  agreement  was 
sealed  for  each  Minister  there  and  one  part  of  the  signing 
was  finished.  That  was  as  far  as  they  had  gone  when 
night  came.     The  job  will  be  finished  up  to-morrow. 

Peking,  January  i6,  1901,  being  the  twenty-sixth  day 

of  the  eleventh  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign 

of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

The    new    house    is    progressing    finely.      The    only 

trouble  with  it  is  that  it  is  too  wprm.   That,  however,  can 

hardly  be  called  a  fault  in  Peking  in  the  Winter.     The 

one  thing  that  we  were  afraid  of,  when  we  moved  in. 


228  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

was  that  it  would  be  too  cold,  and  to  have  it  just  the 
opposite  is  a  pleasure,  I  can  tell  you. 

Well,  the  job  of  signing  the  many  copies  of  the  note  of 
the  powers  was  finished  up  to-day,  but  the  note  was  not 
presented.  The  reason  was  that  the  Chinese  had  certain 
objections  that  they  wanted  to  make,  and  they  put  them 
in  the  shape  of  a  memorandum.  At  least  they  are  put- 
ting them  in  the  shape  of  a  memorandum,  which  they  are 
going  to  present  with  the  signed  copies  of  the  note.  I 
have  a  list  of  all  their  objections,  but  I  can't  use  it  until 
they  are  ready  to  go  to  the  Ministers.  Then  I  will  get 
it  off  quickly.  It's  a  fine  thing  to  get  these  things  ahead 
of  time.  Then  there  is  no  delay  in  handling  them  when 
the  time  comes.  Further,  the  enemy,  who  is  lurking 
around  watching  you,  never  learns  where  you  get  them, 
which  is  another  advantage. 

I  got  another  welcome  letter  to-day.  It  was  from 
little  H.,  bless  her  heart.  It  was  a  mighty  well  written 
and  interesting  letter,  too.  Come  to  think  of  it,  it  was 
only  the  other  day  that  I  complained  a  bit  because  the 
girls  hadn't  written  to  me.  I  have  had  a  letter  now  from 
G.  and  one  from  H.,  and  I  haven't  written  to  either 
of  them  directly,  but  of  course  they  get  the  benefit 
of  my  daily  letters  to  you.  I  don't  suppose  that  satisfies 
them,  but  I'm  afraid  that  for  the  present  it  will  have  to 
do.  One  letter  a  day  is  about  all  I  can  manage.  Maybe 
after  a  while  I  shall  be  able  to  attend  to  them.  I  still 
think  they  owe  me  an  occasional  letter.  There  is  noth- 
ing new  to  tell  you,  and  I  haven't  noticed  anything 
strange  about  the  Chinese  the  last  few  days  that  would 
interest  you,  so  I'm  at  the  end  of  my  story  again. 

Peking,  January    i8,    1901,  being  the  twenty-eighth 

day  of  the  eleventh  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the 

reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

You  will  remember  that  in  a  letter  I  wrote  you  some 

time  ago  I  told  you  about  a  burlesque  that  the  British 

officers    gave    in    the    Temple    of    Heaven,    wherein    the 

Dowager  Empress  was  impersonated   and  made  to  do 

songs  and  dances.     I  told  you,  I  think,  that  it  was  going 

to  raise  Cain.     Well,  it  has  done  so.     The  paragraph  I 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  229 

sent  in  about  it  was  printed  in  London  as  well  as  New 
York,  and  evidently  the  London  papers  took  it  up  and 
began  to  raise  a  row.  Then  the  British  Foreign  Office 
got  stirred  up  and  telegraphed  out  to  know  if  there  was 
any  such  play  being  produced.  The  British  General 
cabled  back  that  there  was,  and  out  came  the  order  on 
the  double  quick  to  suppress  it  at  once.  Then  the  British 
General  tried  to  get  out  of  the  trouble  by  saying  that 
the  play  was  not  produced  in  the  Temple  of  Heaven,  as 
my  dispatch  said  it  was,  but  that  it  was  given  in  the  Hall 
of  Harmony,  which  had  not  been  used  by  the  Chinese. 
That  was  a  fine  quibble,  indeed. 

I  have  already  explained  to  you  about  these  temples 
out  here,  how  they  are  compounds  and  not  buildings. 
The  General  was  probably  right  and  the  play  did  take 
place  in  the  Hall  of  Harmony,  but  the  Hall  was  in  the 
Temple  of  Heaven.  I  had  a  dern  good  notion  to  go 
back  at  him  and  write  another  piece,  particularly  when  I 
got  H.  R.'s  telegram  telling  me  of  the  denial.  Then  I 
thought  it  would  only  be  getting  a  lot  of  officers  out 
here  into  trouble,  and  I  decided  not  to  do  it,  so  I  tel- 
egraphed H.  R.  advising  him  that  the  whole  thing  should 
be  chopped  unless  it  was  necessary  to  maintain  the  point. 
I  haven't  heard  anything  since. 

Well,  the  note  was  delivered  to-day  to  all  the  Min- 
isters, and  I  think  I  scored  again  on  the  enemy.  I  hope 
so,  at  any  rate.  Now  that  it  is  sealed,  signed,  and  de- 
livered, of  course  there  is  no  possibility  of  the  Chinese 
going  back  on  it,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  the  actual 
peace  negotiations  should  not  be  begun  in  a  very  little 
while — a  matter  of  a  week  or  ten  days  at  the  most,  I 
should  think.  You  see,  the  Ministers  will  have  to  get 
together  again,  talk  matters  over,  and  decide  who  will 
have  to  be  pvmished,  and  all  that.  It  seems  to  me  that 
everything  except  the  commercial  treaties  ought  to  be 
finished  up  before  the  close  of  February,  and  then  the 
troops  can  go  out  in  March,  when  the  navigation  on  the 
Pi  Ho  River  opens  again.  Everything  now  looks  very 
satisfactory  for  an  early  start  for  home.  However,  I 
don't  dare  say  much  about  it  yet  because  I  want  so  badly 
to  get  there. 


230  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

Peking,  January  19,  1901,  being  the  twenty-ninth  day 
of  the  eleventh  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign 
of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

The  Ministers  are  going  to  take  until  Tuesday  to  think 
over  the  memorandum  the  Chinese  presented,  and  then 
they  are  going  to  have  a  meeting.  Can't  tell  just  vv^hat  is 
going  to  happen  until  then,  but  everything  appears  to  be 
going  along  swimmingly.  The  Chinese  are  mighty 
clever.  As  I  said  in  my  dispatch  to-day,  their  memoran- 
dum is  a  typical  Chinese  document.  They  agree  to 
comply  with  all  that  the  powers  have  demanded  and  they 
do  it  unequivocally.  Then  they  proceed  to  show  how 
unnecessary  and  how  impossible  of  fulfillment  all  the 
demands  are,  or  most  of  them.  Of  course,  what  they 
say  will  not  have  any  particular  weight  with  the  Min- 
isters, but  it  will  save  the  faces  of  the  Chinese  Com- 
misioners,  and  that  is  what  they  are  anxious  about.  If 
they  can  do  that,  I  think  they  will  be  satisfied.  The 
document  will  make  the  missionaries  very  angry,  though, 
because  it  says  that  the  trouble  was  largely  due  to  the 
bad  feeling  between  the  Christians  and  the  un-Christians. 
While  the  missionaries  know  that  this  statement  is 
largely  true,  they  won't  admit  it  for  a  minute. 

By  the  way,  I  have  been  sharp  after  the  Rev.  A., 
and  I  have  got  him  at'  work  on  that  statement  of  the 
missionary  side  of  the  case  I  told  you  about.  He  has 
written  some  twenty-eight  type-written  pages,  which  will 
make  about  a  page  of  The  Sun.  I  haven't  seen  it  yet, 
but  I  will  probably  do  so  in  a  few  days.  Then  I  am 
going  over  it,  and  if  there  are  any  questions  that  I  want 
answered  that  he  has  not  thought  of  I  will  stick  them  in 
and  get  answers  to  them. 

Well,  that's  the  day's  grist.  It's  short,  but  there's 
nothing  else  to  tell  except  that  I  miss  you. 

Peking,  January  20,  1901,  being  the  thirtieth  day  of 

the  eleventh  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign 

of  Kuang  Hsu. 

I  got  a  beautiful  present,  to-day,  most  unexpectedly. 

It  is  a  red  lacquer  box.     Red  lacquer  is  one  of  the  things 

in  which  the  Chinese  excel.      It  is  very  beautiful  stuff 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  231 

and  is  very  expensive.  I  have  wanted  to  get  a  piece  of 
it  ever  since  I  came  here,  but  did  not  feel  that  I  could 
afiford  it,  so  I  curbed  my  appetite.  To-day  I  called  on 
Mr.  P.,  and  he  said,  "  Let  me  see ;  you  admire  red 
lacquer,  don't  you  ?  "  I  told  him  I  did,  and  he  passed 
out  this  box  and  said,  "  Well,  take  that  home  with  you." 
You  could  have  knocked  me  over  with  a  feather. 

It  is  one  of  the  finest  specimens  I  have  seen.  The 
carving  is  exquisite.  I  saw  something  of  the  same 
pattern,  but  not  so  good,  at  Mr.  S.'s  the  other  day, 
and  he  paid  65  taels  for  it.  That  is  $87,  so  you  see  it  is 
a  pretty  nice  present.  I  have  found  out  since  I  got  it 
to-day  that  giving  presents  like  that  is  one  of  the  tricks 
of  P.  He  likes  to  do  it.  Well,  I  like  to  receive 
them.  Of  course  I'll  bring  the  box  home  with  me  when 
I  come,  and  I  can  assure  you,  you  will  be  pleased  with 
it.  There  is  not  much  else  to  tell  you  to-day,  and  I  guess 
I'd  better  cut  this  letter  off  right  here.  It  will  probably 
be  a  relief  to  you  to  get  a  letter  that  is  as  short  as  this 
after  the  long,  crowded  ones  I  usually  write. 

Peking,  Monday,  January  21,  being  the  first  day  of 
the  twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
Kuang  Hsu. 

Another  moon  has  gone,  and  a  new  moon  has  come. 
It's  the  last  moon  of  the  year.  I  mean  the  Chinese  year. 
Well,  the  new  house  is  coming  on  slowly.  Curtains  went 
up  to-day  and  the  two  old  men  are  gradually  getting  to 
feel  that  they  are  living  civilized.  I  think  after  we  get 
all  fitted  up  I'll  have  to  get  a  camera  and  have  a  photo- 
graph taken  of  the  interior  to  send  to  you,  unless  it 
happens  that  I  start  home  before  that  time,  in  which  case 
I  will  bring  it  along  with  me.  There  is  one  thing  cer- 
tain, we  are  going  to  be  a  mighty  sight  warmer  here  than 
we  were  down  in  the  camp. 

I  was  down  there  this  afternoon  and  had  quite  a  long 
talk  with  General  Chaffee.  I  saw  a  copy  of  The  Sun  of 
December  3rd  while  I  was  there,  and  I've  been  dancing 
rag-time,  and  cursing  at  the  man  that  wrote  out  the  cable 
ever  since.  The  tail-end  of  the  cable  printed  on  that 
day  is  the  most  emasculated  specimen  of  cable  that  mortal 


232  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

man  ever  heard  of.  I  tried  to  tell  a  story  about  how 
Miss  Smith  of  the  London  Inland  Mission  was  again 
helping  out  the  Germans  by  taking  a  contract  to  do  their 
street  cleaning  for  them,  and  they  had  the  English 
government  helping  out  the  Germans,  and  the  darndest 
lot  of  nonsense  that  was  everything  but  what  was  in- 
tended !  I  don't  think  I  was  ever  quite  so  disgusted  in 
my  life.  I  suppose  that  the  vile  cable  service  was  re- 
sponsible for  some  of  it,  and  ignorance  in  the  office  was 
responsible  for  the  rest.  I  am  going  to  get  a  copy  of  my 
original  dispatch  to-morrow  and  send  it  in  to  the  office 
with  the  dispatch  as  it  appeared  in  the  paper,  just  to 
make  them  tired. 

Well,  the  Ministers  have  a  meeting  to-morrow,  and 
maybe  they  will  start  the  machinery  in  motion  that  is  to 
bring  peace  to  this  land.  We  are  all  quite  certain  that 
the  movement  away  from  here  will  begin  very  soon,  and 
that  we  are  all  glad  it  will.  You  can  well  imagine  that 
China  is  all  right,  but,  as  the  comedian  says,  little  old 
New  York  is  good  enough  for  me. 


Peking,  January  22,  1901,  being  the  second  day  of  the 
twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
Kuang  Hsu. 

I  had  Dr.  M.  of  The  London  Times  to  tiffin  with 
me  to-day,  and  was  somewhat  tickled  when  he  gravely 
assured  me  that  his  own  service  to  The  Times  was  really 
quite  useless,  because  the  service  of  the  Laffan  Bureau 
was  always  from  three  to  four  days  ahead  of  him.  He 
didn't  appear  to  be  unhappy  over  the  fact — was 
rather  pleased,  in  fact,  that  The  Times  got  its  news  so 
quickly ! 

There  has  been  something  of  a  slaughter  of  some  of 
opponents  around  here  lately.  The  A.  P.,  Reuters', 
Chicago  Record,  and  two  or  three  other  men  started  a 
combination  to  do  me  up  in  a  new  sense.  Of  course  it 
would  never  do  for  a  Sun  man  to  be  beaten  by  such  a 
combination  of  nondescripts  and  I  started  in  to  hustle 
just  to  see  what  could  be  done.  I  have  been  particularly 
fortunate  and  have  had  the  news  ahead  of  the  crowd  with 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  233 

a  regularity  that  has  induced  them  to  send  a  man  around 
every  day  or  so  to  pump  me. 

The  A.  P.  man  got  a  telegram  a  couple  of  days  ago, 
saying,  "  Your  service  is  constantly  one  day  late."  He 
surprised  me  somewhat  by  bringing  it  around  and 
showing  it  to  me.  Of  course  I  sympathized  with  him 
and  told  him  I  didn't  see  how  it  was  that  as  bright  a  man 
as  he  could  possibly  deserve  such  a  censure.  He  is  dis- 
gusted now  with  the  whole  world,  and  to-day  M. 
told  me  that  the  A.  P.  man  was  going  home  and  in- 
tended to  leave  the  newspaper  business  for  the  more 
congenial  pastime  of  ranching  in  the  West.  Just  be- 
tween you  and  me  I  think  he  is  better  fitted  for  ranch- 
ing than  he  is  for  newspaper  work.  But  that  is  neither 
here  nor  there.  He  is  the  third  A.  P.  man  who  started  in 
here  to  fight  me,  and  he  is  the  third  one  to  give  up  the 
job.  I  hope  they  will  let  me  alone  hereafter.  If  they 
devoted  half  as  much  of  their  energy  to  getting  news  as 
they  do  to  trying  to  find  out  what  I  am  doing,  they  might 
do  better.  I  don't  suppose  that  this  interests  you,  but  it 
is  mighty  interesting  to  me  out  here  in  China,  and  I 
couldn't  help  telling  you. 

The  Ministers  held  a  meeting  to-day,  and,  so  far  as  I 
can  make  out,  everything  is  going  along  swimmingly  and 
things  will  be  in  such  shape  that  my  day  for  shaking 
China's  dust  from  my  feet  is  not  far  distant,  I  hope. 
The  new  home  is  getting  fixed  up  fast  and  we  are  trying 
to  look  quite  swell  indeed. 

Peking,  January  2^,,  1901,  being  the  third  day  of  the 
twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

A  dull  day  again — so  dull  that  I  did  not  even  send  a 
cable.  There  wasn't  anything  to  send.  I  visited  the 
Legation  this  morning  and  again  in  the  afternoon,  and 
this  afternoon  also  I  went  down  to  camp  and  had  a  talk 
with  General  Chafifee.  You  will  remember  that  I 
told  you  some  time  ago  about  the  arrival  of  B.  in 
Peking,  and  predicted  from  his  manner  that  it  would  not 
be  long  before  he  got  into  trouble.  Well,  it's  come.  He 
went  around  with  a  chip  on  his  shoulder  and  he  ran 


234  ORDERED    TO    CHIN* A 

against  the  wrong  man  in  the  person  of  General  Chaffee. 
The  result  of  the  encounter  is  that  the  General  has  issued 
an  order  forbidding  him  to  use  the  United  States  tele- 
graph line  at  all  and  Mr.  B.  is  barred.  The  story  is 
a  long  one  and  I  won't  burden  you  with  it.  It  is  just 
another  case  of  the  mighty  falling  and  there  is  an  end  on 
it.  I  suppose  B.  will  try  to  get  square  with  Chaffee  by 
writing  him  up,  and  that's  all  the  good  it  will  do  him. 

The  Ministers  have  another  meeting  to-morrow,  and 
then  we  hope  they  will  finish  up  their  job  and  invite  the 
Chinamen  to  come  to  see  them  and  talk  the  matter  over. 
Pekingese  weather  started  in  again  this  afternoon,  and 
the  dust  is  flying  so  thick  that  you  can't  see  your  hand 
in  front  of  your  face.  It  is  meaner  dust  now  than  the 
ordinary,  too,  for  it  has  been  ground  up  with  the  snow 
and  is  the  dirtiest,  wettest  dust  you  could  imagine.  It 
becomes  mud  shortly  after  it  hits  you.  When  I  came  in 
this  afternoon  I  looked  like  a  mud  man. 

Peking,  Wednesday,  January  24,  1901,  being  the 
fourth  day  of  the  twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year 
of  the  reign  of  Kuang  Hsu. 

I  learned  to-day  that  the  cable  I  sent  on  early  in 
December,  explaining  the  remark  of  Sir  Ernest  Satow 
in  regard  to  the  missionaries  and  native  Christians  having 
reimbursed  themselves,  raised  something  of  a  rumpus 
and  for  some  days  thereafter  the  papers  talked  about 
it — to  what  extent  I  haven't  any  idea,  but  you  will  recall 
that  I  told  you  at  the  time  I  suspected  it  might  cause 
trouble,  and  I  explained  all  the  circumstances  to  you.  I 
have  not  been  called  on  by  a  delegation  of  missionaries 
yet,  with  an  invitation  to  eat  my  words,  but  I  expect  to 
be.  In  the  meantime,  I  am  getting  along  finely.  The 
Rev.  A.  called  on  me  yesterday  with  a  copy  of  his 
interview  defending  missionaries,  and  I  am  just  now 
going  over  it  and  fixing  it  up  to  send  off.  It  is  sufficient 
in  itself,  I  think,  to  back  up  anything  The  Sun  or  your 
humble  servant  has  said,  but  if  anything  further  is 
desired  it  is  obtainable. 

We  just  heard  to-day  in  Peking  of  the  Queen's  death. 
The  cable  has  been  down  for  two  or  three  days  at  Foo- 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  235 

Chow,  which  is  between  Shanghai  and  Hong  Kong,  and 
that  is  the  reason  it  took  the  news  so  long  to  reach  here. 
She  died  day  before  yesterday.  The  news  came  to-day 
while  the  Ministers  were  having  a  meeting  at  the 
British  Legation.  Of  course  the  meeting  adjourned  at 
once,  and  there  won't  be  another  one  held  until  after  her 
funeral.  How  long  that  will  be  I  don't  know.  I  sup- 
pose a  week  at  least. 

The  English  dispatches  to-day  announcing  what  had 
happened  were  strange  to  the  citizens  of  a  republic. 
The  first  one  read:  "Her  Majesty  the  Queen  died  at  i 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon  of  January  22!'  The  next  one, 
immediately  under  it,  read :  "  His  Majesty  the  King  is 
coming  from  so-and-so  by  special  train  to  take  the  oath 
of  succession,  etc."  It  was  off  with  the  old  and  on  with 
the  new  with  a  vengeance,  wasn't  it? 

Captain  ,   of   General   Chaffee's   staff,   is   here 

to-night.  It  was  from  him  I  learned  about  the 
effect  of  the  missionary  story.  He  is  going  to  spend 
the  night  with  me.  Our  talk  was  chiefly  about  the 
Legations,  just  after  the  siege,  and  I  learned  some 
very  interesting  things  about  the  jealousies  that  attended 
the  siege,  particularly  about  our  own  Legation,  though 
all  the  other  Legations  were  the  same,  of  course.  Every 
family  was  pointing  its  fingers  at  every  other  family. 
Everybody  was  whispering  that  everybody  else  was  a 
coward,  and,  altogether,  things  were  topsy-turvy  and 
continued  so  long  after  the  Legations  were  relieved. 
The  women  were  the  chief  talkers,  of  course,  and  in  one 
Legation  it  got  so  bad,  some  time  after  the  siege,  that  the 
Minister  just  lined  up  the  whole  lot  and  made  a  speech 
to  them.  He  told  them  that  there  was  important  work 
to  be  done  in  Peking  and  that  the  men  had  their  hands 
full,  without  being  constantly  worried  with  the  cackling 
of  a  lot  of  jealous  women  who  didn't  know  what  they 
were  talking  about.  That  was  straight  out  from  the 
shoulder,  and  I  think  it  did  the  business.  He  told  them 
that  if  he  heard  any  more  of  the  talk  he  would  send  them 
all  home. 

There's  a  day's  grist  of  gossip  for  you,  and  with  it  I'll 
close. 


S36  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

Peking,  January  25,  1901,  being  the  fifth  day  of  the 
twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign^of  H.  I. 
M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

I  heard  a  new  one  on  the  Chmese  to-day.  Li  Hung 
Chang  got  a  memorial  from  the  Dowager  out  in  Singan 
Fu,  giving  him  bally-hoo  for  the  killing  of  those  officials 
in  Poa-ting  Fu.  The  officials  were  killed  after  a  trial 
by  a  court  made  up  of  foreign  military  officers.  They 
were  accused  of  being  responsible  for  the  killing  of 
some  of  the  missionaries  out  there  during  the  trouble, 
and  were  convicted  of  that  offense.  They  were  be- 
headed by  order  of  the  court  that  convicted  them.  Of 
course  Li  Hung  Chang  had  nothing  to  do  with  their  con- 
viction or  with  their  killing,  but  the  Dowager  jumped  on 
him  for  it.  I  asked  a  Chinaman  how  that  was,  and  he 
said  that  it  happened  in  the  Province  of  Pechili,  of  which 
Li  Hung  Chang  is  the  Viceroy.  But,  I  said,  he  had 
nothing  to  do  with  it.  The  Chinaman  replied  that  Li 
was  the  Viceroy  and  it  was  Chinese  custom  to  hold  the 
head  official  of  a  province  responsible  for  what  happened 
in  the  province. 

"  Why,"  said  he,  "  if  there  is  a  great  storm  anywhere 
and  the  lightning  strikes  houses,  the  Emperor  issues 
an  edict  degrading  the  head  official  of  the  town.  If  there 
is  a  great  fire  and  lots  of  buildings  are  burned,  the 
Emperor  degrades  the  local  magistrate ;  also,  if  the  crops 
fail  and  there  is  a  famine,  the  head  of  the  district  is 
always  degraded.  Under  the  Chinese  Government  the 
head  man  is  always  responsible  for  such  things." 

Now,  how  would  you  like  to  be  a  head  man  in  China 
under  such  circumstances?  I  am  free  to  confess  that  I 
would  much  rather  be  a  correspondent  for  The  Sun. 
Anyway,  I  am  not  looking  for  any  political  honors. 

I  have  completed  the  decoration  of  our  temple  now, 
and  we  are  snug  as  bugs  in  a  rug,  considering  that  we  are 
in  Peking.  Really,  we  are  better  off  than  you  would 
imagine.  We  have  four  rooms — that  is,  a  bedroom  for 
each  of  us,  a  big  sitting  room  and  dining  room,  and  a 
smaller  office  room.  We  have  succeeded  in  getting  hold 
of  lamps  and  oil,  and  now  we  have  more  or  less  decent 
light,  night  as  well  as  day.     This  will  enable  me  to  do 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  237 

a  little  more  work  than  I  have  been  doing  in  the  writing 
line,  and  I  am  consequently  better  satisfied. 

Among  our  room  decorations  are  a  lot  of  peach  and 
cherry  blossoms  that  in  their  way  are  curiosities.  The 
Chinese  are  very  clever  in  their  manipulation  of  such 
things.  They  take  the  branch  of  a  cherry  tree,  for 
instance,  and  trim  the  twigs  so  that  they  form  a  Chinese 
character.  They  force  the  buds  and  then  take  the 
branches  around  to  sell.  Two  days  in  a  warm  room 
will  bring  out  the  blossoms,  and  so  we  have  in  two  rooms 
potted  cherry  trees  full  of  blossoms  that  form  the 
Chinese  character  for  happiness.  The  peach  trees  are 
also  trained  to  represent  a  Chinese  character,  but  what 
that  character  is  I  have  not  let  learned.  Blossoms  at  this 
season  of  the  year,  when  the  snow  covers  the  ground  and 
the  wind  is  whistling,  are  mighty  refreshing  to  look  at, 
I  can  tell  you. 

There  is  no  further  news  about  the  possible  quick 
ending  of  this  aflfair,  and  I  don't  see  how  there  can  be 
any  until  the  Queen  is  buried.  I  doubt  very  much  if 
there  will  even  be  any  meetings  of  the  Ministers  until 
after  the  funeral,  so  things  will  be  in  statu  quo  for  a  week 
or  ten  days.     I'll  say  good-night  for  the  156th  time. 

January  26,  being  the  sixth  day  of  the  twelfth  moon 
of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang 
Hsu. 
I  wonder  if  when  I  get  back  to  the  States,  I  shall  be 
able  to  forget  the  day  and  the  moon  and  the  reigning 
emperor,  when  I  sit  down  to  write  a  letter.  Recording 
it  now  has  become  a  habit  with  me  and  I  do  it  me- 
chanically. It  is  no  trouble  at  all.  I  really  think  I  can 
keep  the  Chinese  calendar  in  my  head  better  than  I  can 
my  own.  I  know  that  I  can  do  it  better  than  I  can  the 
days  of  the  week  of  our  calendar.  Here  this  is  Saturday, 
and  I've  been  going  around  all  day  under  the  impression 
that  it  was  only  Wednesday.  I  had  absolutely  lost  two 
days  out  of  the  calendar,  and  for  the  life  of  me  I  can't 
tell  how  or  what  has  become  of  them.  I  knew  that  to- 
day was  the  sixth  day  of  the  twelfth  moon  and  I  had  to 
look  twice  at  my  Chinese  calendar  to  make  myself  be- 


238  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

lieve  it  was   Saturday,     But  it  surely  is,  and  there  is 
another  week  out  of  sight. 

To-day,  though,  was  another  one  of  those  particularly 
happy  ones  for  me.  I  got  another  letter  from  you.  It 
was  dated  the  6th  of  December,  and  had  been  a  long  time 
coming.  It  got  here  by  the  Chinese  Imperial  post.  You 
are  still  my  star,  in  the  matter  of  letter-writing.  One 
letter  from  G.  and  one  from  Ward  and  one  from 
Paddock  constitute  my  all  in  the  letter  line  outside  of  the 
letters  I  receive  from  you  with  more  or  less  regularity, 
even  if  the  northern  port  of  China  is  frozen  up.  I  am 
looking  now  for  a  letter  from  H,  R.  He  cabled  me  that 
an  important  letter  had  been  sent  to  me  from  London 
December  22.  It  is  too  soon  to  get  it,  but  I'm  keeping  a 
watch  out,  nevertheless. 

Peking,  Sunday,  January  27,  1901,  the  same  being  the 
seventh  day  of  the  twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of 
the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

There  was  one  piece  of  good  news  to-day.  It  came 
from  the  German  headquarters  and  it  was  the  first  real 
intimation  of  home-going  that  there  has  been.  It  was 
in  the  shape  of  a  letter  written  by  Count  von  Waldersee, 
the  Commander-in-chief,  giving  his  idea  of  what  ought 
to  be  done  in  the  way  of  evacuating  the  Province  of 
Pechi-li.  On  the  end  of  the  peace  demands  there  is  a 
note  which  reads  something  like  this :  "  Until  the  above 
conditions  are  complied  with,  to  the  satisfaction  of  the 
powers,  the  undersigned  can  offer  no  expectation  of  a 
withdrawal  of  the  foreign  force  from  Peking  and  the 
province  of  Pechi-li."  Ever  since  the  note  went  in 
everybody  has  been  wondering  what  the  powers  would  be 
satisfied  with,  and  nobody  has  been  able  to  say.  This 
letter  of  von  Waldersee  says  that  when  China  complies 
with  the  terms  sufficiently,  the  evacuation  can  begin,  so 
far  as  Peking  and  Poa-ting  Fu  are  concerned,  and  he 
goes  on  and  says  that  he  thinks  it  would  be  sufficient  for 
China  to  go  ahead  and  inflict  the  punishments  that  the 
Ministers  demand. 

That  is  something  like !  These  punishments  can  be 
inflicted  in  a  day  after  the  powers  make  known  exactly 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  239 

what  they  want,  which  they  will  probably  do  as  soon  as 
the  Queen  is  buried  and  they  are  able  to  have  a  meeting 
again.  Of  course  it  is  not  certain  that  she  will  do  it, 
but  she  can  do  it,  and  my  own  opinion  is  that  she  will, 
though  for  a  time  it  is  possible  that  she  may  do  a  little 
kicking  about  it.  But,  as  I  have  told  you  before,  the 
Chinese  are  sick  of  their  job  and  they  want  to  clear  it  all 
up.  Why  wouldn't  they?  The  Dowager  and  the 
Emperor  and  all  the  big  officials  of  the  Court  are  living 
in  Chinese  houses  out  in  Singan  Fu.  They  have  a  few  of 
the  comforts  of  life,  and  the  province  they  are  in  is 
suffering  from  a  famine.  They  are  surrounded  by  want 
and  destitution  on  every  side.  Hundreds  of  people  are 
dying  of  starvation  every  day.  The  condition  of  things, 
as  near  as  I  can  find  out,  is  terrible  indeed.  The  people 
are  actually  turning  cannibals.  Parents  are  killing  their 
children  to  avoid  seeing  them  starve  to  death,  women  and 
children  are  being  sold  into  slavery  to  the  few  people  who 
have  the  means  of  buying.  With  affairs  in  their  imme- 
diate sight  in  such  a  condition  it  would  be  a  wonder  if 
the  Chinese  officials  were  not  sick  of  their  jobs.  They 
are  all  anxious  to  return  to  Peking,  and  I  believe  they 
are  willing  to  make  almost  any  sacrifice  to  bring  about  a 
condition  of  affairs  that  will  enable  them  to  return.  Of 
course,  the  evacuation  of  Peking  and  Poa-ting  Fu  doesn't 
mean  the  evacuation  of  the  whole  of  China,  but  once  the 
start  is  made  I  think  that  the  rest  will  easily  be  accom- 
plished. 

Peking,  January  28,  1901,  being  the  eighth  day  of  the 
twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

There  wasn't  any  news  to  speak  of  to-day,  but  to-night 
Reeves  and  I  had  a  house-warming  and  were  highly 
honored  by  the  presence  of  the  Minister  and  Mrs.  and 
Miss  Conger,  Miss  Pierce,  the  niece  of  the  Congers, 
Lieutenant  Hammond  of  the  Ninth  Infantry,  Lieutenant 
Slater,  also  of  the  Ninth,  Lieutenant  Munson  of  the  Com- 
missary, and  Lieutenant  Kearnes  of  the  Sixth  Cavalry. 
Quite  a  party,  wasn't  it.?  They  all  came  in  about  8  o'clock. 
Munson  had  a  guitar  and  Slater  his  cornet,  and  we  had 


240  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

music  and  singing  and  a  high  old  time — for  Peking.  THe 
Minister  entered  into  the  spirit  of  the  occasion  with  gusto 
and  had  as  good  a  time  as  any  of  the  rest  of  us.  He's  a 
pretty  good  fellow,  Mr.  Conger  is,  and  I  think  I'll  have  to 
remember  him  in  my  will.  Miss  Pierce  is  a  young 
woman  who  went  all  through  the  siege.  She  has  lived 
with  the  Congers  ever  since  they  have  been  out  here. 
The  party  did  not  break  up  until  midnight,  and  it  is 
getting  along  towards  i  o'clock  now,  so  I'll  have  to  make 
this  a  short  letter. 

Peking,  Tuesday,  January  29,  1901,  being  the  ninth 
day  of  the  twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the 
reign  of  Kuang  Hsu. 

That  letter  of  Count  von  Waldersee  I  told  you  about 
in  my  letter  Sunday  has  provided  another  chapter  in 
the  feud  between  the  Count  and  Dr.  Mumm  von  Schwar- 
zenstein,  the  German  Minister.  You  will  recall  that  I 
wrote  you  about  the  trouble  between  them  over  the  ques- 
tion of  rank,  and  how  they  would  not  go  to  the  same 
dinner  for  fear  one  might  get  a  better  place  than  the  other. 
Well,  the  Count  wrote  a  letter  and  addressed  it  to  the 
Minister.  At  the  close  of  the  letter  he  said  he  left  it  to 
the  discretion  of  the  Minister  whether  or  not  he  would 
bring  it  before  his  colleagues  in  the  corps  of  Ministers. 
Of  course  that  was  a  request  to  bring  it  before  them. 
But  Mumm  von  Schwarzenstein,  it  seems,  put  it  away 
in  a  pigeon-hole  in  his  desk,  and  not  once  did  it  see  the 
light  of  day  with  Mumm's  assistance.  His  colleagues 
among  the  Ministers  would  still  be  in  ignorance  of  the 
Count's  ideas  had  it  not  been  for  the  fact  that  the  Count 
had  had  the  forethought  to  send  a  copy  of  his  letter  to 
each  of  the  military  commanders  in  Peking.  The  military 
commanders  of  course  promptly  forwarded  it  to  their 
Ministers,  and  there  you  are.  They  got  it  in  spite  of 
Mumm.  Now  I  understand  the  Ministers  are  going  to 
try  to  have  a  meeting  on  Thursday,  and  they  may  call  on 
Mumm  for  his  ideas  on  the  military  situation,  just  to  see 
what  he  will  say.  I  don't  suppose  they  will,  but  they  may, 
and  if  they  do  that  will  bring  the  thing  to  a  head.  I  hope 
they  do. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  241 

I  had  another  treat  to-day  in  the  shape  of  a  small 
bundle  of  Suns.  They  were  from  the  ist  to  the  13th  of 
December.  I  noticed  in  the  12th  that  paragraph  that  I 
told  you  about — missionaries  and  native  Christians  loot- 
ing— and  in  the  13th  I  saw  an  interview  with  Dr.  M., 
a  missionary  who  was  out  here.  Of  course  you  saw  it. 
Did  you  notice  that  he  practically  admitted  what  was  said, 
but  excused  the  crime  on  the  ground  of  necessity  ?  I 
have  got  that  statement  of  A.'s  now,  and  he  does 
practically  the  same  thing.  I  am  going  to  send  it  on  this 
week  if  there  is  a  mail  going.  I  understand  we  may  get 
another  mail  out  in  a  few  days.  A.  tries  to  justify 
himself  by  saying  that  everybody  did  it,  which  doesn't 
seem  to  me  to  be  a  good  defense  at  all.  It  is  too  much 
in  the  two-wrongs-make-a-right  plan  to  suit  your  humble 
servant.  However,  they  are  the  keepers  of  their  own 
consciences  out  here,  and  if  it  doesn't  hurt  them  I  am  not 
going  to  let  it  hurt  me. 

To-night  the  missionaries  had  a  meeting,  and  took  the 
Ministers  to  task  for  not  doing  everything  they,  the  mis- 
sionaries, desired  in  the  preliminary  note.  They  also 
framed  a  lot  of  demands  they  want  the  Ministers  to  insert 
in  the  final  treaties,  when  they  are  made.  I  sent  some  of 
them  to  The  Sun  to-day.  They  are  going  to  send  them  to 
the  Ministers  to-morrow. 

Peking,  January  30,  1901,  being  the  tenth  day  of  the 
twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of  H.  I. 
M.    Kuang  Hsu. 

A  dull  day  again.  Nothing  at  all  has  happened  worth 
telling  you  about.  Last  night  there  was  a  little  rumpus 
out  in  our  back  yard,  where  some  Italian  soldiers,  loaded 
with  bug-juice,  climbed  over  the  wall  of  our  compound, 
under  the  insane  notion  that  there  were  some  Chinese 
women  to  be  had.  They  searched  the  servants'  quarters 
and  broke  into  the  house  occupied  by  Mr.  J.  When 
he  tried  to  shoo  them  away,  they  pulled  out  knife  bayonets 
and  were  going  to  carve  him.  He  sent  up  to  the  Ameri- 
can Legation  and  a  part  of  the  guard  hustled  down  and 
started  to  arrest  the  dagos.  They  fled.  The  guard  or- 
dered them  to  stop.     They  didn't  do  it,  and  one  of  the 


242  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

guard  pulled  up  his  rifle  and  fired.  He  caught  one  of 
them  in  the  calf  of  the  leg.  It  was  a  good  shot,  consider- 
ing that  the  man  was  250  yards  away  and  there  was  only 
the  light  of  the  moon  to  see  by. 

I  am  telling  you  all  this  at  second-hand,  for  I  was  sleep- 
ing soundly  in  my  little  bed,  and  I  didn't  hear  about  it 
until  this  morning.  Of  course  there  will  be  an  investiga- 
tion and  all  that,  and,  from  the  way  they  are  running  mil- 
itary matters  out  here  now,  I  wouldn't  he  surprised  if  the 
guard  who  fired  the  shot  got  court-martialed.  It  will  be  a 
shame  if  he  is,  but  that  is  the  way  things  are  running  now. 
The  American  soldier  is  not  having  a  very  happy  time. 
The  rules  of  the  American  camp  are  so  strict  that  the  camp 
is  spoken  of  as  a  prison,  with  the  officers  as  turnkeys, 
while  the  soldiers  are  the  prisoners.  There  has  been  more 
or  less  of  trouble  there  for  some  time.  Friday  several  of 
the  officers  are  to  be  court-martialed  for  violating  an  order 
not  to  leave  the  camp.  You  see  everybody  has  more  or 
less  trouble  in  life. 

Peking,  January  31,  1901,  being  the  eleventh  day  of 
the  twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
Kuang  Hsu. 

I  got  another  letter  from  home  to-day  and  have  been 
correspondingly  happy.  It  was  a  long  one  and  was  written 
December  12.  That  is  not  very  recent,  it  is  true,  but 
when  a  letter  is  a  month  old,  anyway,  a  week  or  ten  days 
more  or  less  added  doesn't  detract  from  it  a  particle.  A 
few  days  after  you  wrote  that  you  ought  to  have  received 
a  couple  of  packages  and  a  lot  more  letters.  They  con- 
tained the  very  gown  that  you  spoke  about.  I  certainly 
hope  that  they  reached  you  all  right.  The  letter  mailed 
in  San  Francisco  that  you  spoke  of  getting  was  one  I  gave 
to  General  Wilson  and  asked  him  to  mail  for  me  at  Naga- 
saki, Japan.  It  would  have  gone  by  the  same  steamer 
he  sailed  on,  and  I  suppose  he  thought  it  just  as  well 
to  take  it  along  with  him  and  mail  it  when  he  reached 
the  United  States.  Whatever  he  thought,  that  is  evidently 
what  he  did. 

In  your  letter  of  the  12th  you  tell  me  again  about  W.'s 
refusal  to  go  to  school.      Have  you  told  him  what  I 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  243 

told  you  to  tell  him  about  the  Mahatmas  of  the  Desert  of 
Gobi  ?  He  may  think  I  didn't  mean  that,  but  he  will  have 
a  very  different  idea  when  he  sees  one  of  these  full-sized 
Mahatmas  with  a  hobgoblin  head,  pop  in  on  him  and 
whisk  him  off  in  a  basket  to  spend  a  few  years  shoveling 
sand  into  the  wind  out  here  in  China.  Such  a  big  boy  as 
he  is  ought  to  be  good  to  his  mother,  and  not  worry  her. 
I  can  tell  him  that  out  in  the  Desert  of  Gobi,  where  the 
sand  is  so  thick  that  one  can't  see  and  the  wind  always 
moans  "  Wa-o-o-o-o,"  it  is  very  different  from  what  it  is 
in  Brooklyn,  and  the  boys  that  the  Mahatmas  get  out  there 
just  wish  they  had  never  been  born  at  all.  They  have  to 
keep  shoveling  sand  all  the  time.  They  don't  have  any 
warm,  comfortable  bed  to  go  to  at  night.  They  don't  have 
any  time  to  play,  but  they  must  shovel,  and  shovel,  and 
shovel,  to  keep  the  sand  from  falling  around  them  and 
covering  them  all  up,  while  the  wind  blows  "  Wo-o-o-o-o," 
never  stopping  even  for  breath.  Whenever  you  think 
it  is  necessary  to  send  him  out  there  write  and  let  me 
know,  and  I'll  go  out  and  whistle  up  the  head  Ma- 
hatma. 

I  enclose  in  this  letter  a  lot  of  seeds  from  a 
gourd  that  I  got  at  the  Summer  Palace  of  the  Dowager 
Empress  of  China.  Gourds  are  tokens  of  long  life,  pros- 
perity, happiness,  and  everything  else  good — in  China. 
When  the  Dowager  received  the  ladies  of  the  Legations  in 
the  old  times  she  would  always  present  gourds  to  them. 
They  grew  easily  and  big,  and  they  polish  up  handsomely. 
They  are  utilized  in  a  hundred  different  ways.  The  last 
time  that  I  was  out  at  the  Summer  Palace  I  picked  two 
from  one  of  the  favorite  trees  of  the  Dowager,  and  now  I 
have  opened  them  and  taken  out  the  seeds.  It  may  amuse 
you  as  well  as  the  children  to  plant  them  and  grow  a  crop 
of  gourds  straight  from  the  grounds  of  royalty.  You 
had  better  tell  the  infants  to  ask  their  grandpa  how  to  do 
it.  I  am  going  to  send  some  of  the  seeds  to  him  and 
grandma,  too.  The  climate  here  is  about  the  same  as  the 
climate  of  Brooklyn,  only  colder,  and  there  ought  to  be 
no  trouble  about  their  growing. 


244  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

Peking,  Friday,  February  i,  1901,  being  the  twelfth 
day  of  the  twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the 
reign  of  Kuang  Hsu. 

Here  is  a  fresh  month  started,  but  happily  under  more 
promising  auspices  than  any  of  those  that  have  passed 
since  I  started  from  home  for  heathendom.  The  Ministers 
are  actually  going  to  meet  Li  Hung  Chang  on  Tuesday, 
and  everything  promises  well  indeed  for  an  early  settle- 
ment. I  don't  Hke  to  rejoice  in  anybody's  bad  luck ;  at  the 
same  time,  I  can't  help  feeling  considerable  satisfaction 
over  the  fact  that  I  lifted  that  combination  of  correspond- 
ents I  told  you  about  ofif  its  feet  again  in  the  matter  of  the 
Waldersee  letter,  and  they  have  been  getting  dispatches 
about  it  from  their  offices.  I  hadn't  any  idea  when  I  sent 
it  that  it  would  be  a  beat,  but  it  seems  that  it  was.  Two 
of  them  told  me  to-day  that  they  had  been  kicked  at,  and 
they  were  thinking  seriously  of  getting  out  and  going 
home.  Well,  as  long  as  things  go  on  that  way,  I  guess 
the  old  Sun  is  all  right,  don't  you  think  so?  I've  got  an- 
other rod  in  pickle  for  them  on  Sunday,  when  I  am  going 
to  send  a  story  about  the  famine,  and  still  another  on 
Tuesday.  I  hope  I  can  get  away  with  both  of  them,  but 
I  suppose  that  is  altogether  too  much  for  me  to  expect. 

Peking  is  again  sufifering  from  an  overdose  of  wind, 
and  the  dust  is  so  thick  you  can't  see  your  hand  in  front  of 
your  face.  The  result  is  that  I  have  been  no  farther  away 
than  the  Legation,  and  I  shall  not  go  out  at  all  to-morrow 
if  it  is  not  a  better  day.  I  have  taken  a  great  abhorrence 
to  "lust.  I  guess  that  everybody  does,  after  a  time  in 
Peking, 

Peking,  February  2,  1901,  being  the  thirteenth  day  of 
the  twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
Kuang  Hsu. 

It  is  getting  toward  the  middle  of  the  last  moon  of  the 
26th  year  of  Kuang's  reign,  isn't  it?  I'll  very  shortly  be 
celebrating  another  New  Year's  day.  That,  so  far  as  I 
am  now  informed,  will  wind  up  the  calendar  season,  and 
there  won't  be  any  more  New  Year's  celebrations,  for  a 
while,  at  least.  What  put  into  my  head  the  approaching 
one  in  Peking  was  a  walk  down  the  Chienmaine  this  after- 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  245 

noon.  I  saw  things  that  I  hadn't  seen  before  since  I  came 
to  China — children's  toys — not  toys  such  as  we  have  in 
America,  but  queer  jiggers  of  all  sorts,  unmistakably 
meant  for  children's  playthings,  though  they  didn't  have 
any  labels  on  them,  and  perhaps  I  am  talking  about  some- 
thing that  I  do  not  know  anything  about.  I  find  myself 
doing  that  once  in  a  while,  here  in  China,  and  to-day  I 
didn't  examine  these  things  very  closely,  so  it  is  possible 
I  am  wrong.  At  any  rate,  they  seemed  to  me  to  be 
toys. 

A  China  boy  who  was  looking  at  one  of  the  stands  more 
or  less  wistfully,  pulled  my  coat  and  asked  for  a  cash. 
That  is  the  tenth  of  a  cent.  He  could  say  a  word  or  two 
of  English  (pigeon),  and  I  gathered  from  what  he  said 
that  he  didn't  have  any  father  or  mother,  and  he  did  want 
to  buy  a  toy.  I  was  in  a  hurry  to  get  to  camp,  and  I  gave 
him  the  cash  without  stopping  to  investigate  further. 
Sometime  between  now  and  Chinese  New  Year  I'll  stop 
at  a  stand  and  investigate  the  matter  and  will  write  you 
and  the  children  a  letter  about  Chinese  toys.  Here  I'll 
just  tell  you  that  Chinese  New  Year  is  really  the  Chinese 
Christmas.  They  do  their  present-giving,  similar  to  our 
Christmas-giving,  on  that  occasion,  only  they  go  into  the 
giving  more  thoroughly.  The  Chinamen  give  presents, 
not  only  to  the  members  of  their  families,  but  to  all  their 
friends.  Of  course  they  get  presents  in  return  from  all 
their  friends,  too,  so  the  matter  evens  itself  up.  But  more 
about  this  later,  when  I  find  out  more  about  it. 

To-day  there  was  a  funeral  service  held  in  honor 
of  the  Queen.  There  was  a  great  turn-out.  There  were 
troops  from  all  the  nations  represented  here,  and  all  the 
Ministers  and  Secretaries  in  full  uniform,  more  gorgeous 
even  than  those  worn  by  the  Generals.  A  regular  service 
was  read  by  a  clergyman,  and  then  came  hymn-singing 
and  all  the  things  that  go  to  make  up  a  proper  funeral 
ceremony.  Meantime  cannon  were  booming.  A  cannon 
was  fired  every  minute  for  loi  minutes.  All  the  British 
soldiers  wore  bands  of  crepe  around  their  arms,  and  are 
going  to  continue  wearing  them,  by  the  way,  until  along 
in  March,  some  time.  Taken  altogether,  it  was  really 
quite  an  impressive  ceremony.     It  was  a  raw,  cold  day, 


246  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

and  the  wind  was  blowing  fearful  gusts,  while  the  dust 
swirled  around  and  beat  into  the  faces  of  the  crowd  that 
had  gathered.  But  everybody  stuck  it  out  to  the  end,  and 
a  lot  of  people  were  foolish  enough  to  stand  bareheaded 
during  the  greater  part  of  the  ceremony.  I  suppose  there 
will  be  the  usual  crop  of  pneumonia  cases  following  the 
ceremony,  as  there  is  after  all  outdoor  functions  at  this 
season  of  the  year. 

By  the  way,  I  heard  a  more  or  less  alarming  rumor  to- 
day, to  the  effect  that  there  was  a  great  deal  of  smallpox 
in  New  York.  Somehow  or  other  a  copv  of  Town  Topics 
reached  here,  and  it  was  giving  the  New  York  papers 
ballyhoo  because  they  were  not  printing  a  lot  about  it.  It 
said  that  the  disease  was  almost  epidemic.  Of  course,  by 
the  time  you  get  this  letter  the  danger  will  be  passed,  but  I 
am  worrying  a  little  about  it,  because  I  can't  for  the  life 
of  me  remember  whether  you  have  all  been  vaccinated  or 
not.  My  impression  is  that  you  have  been,  but  I  wish  I 
could  remember  for  certain. 

There  is  a  good  deal  of  smallpox  in  Peking.  There  is 
always  a  lot  of  it  here.  The  English,  the  Germans,  and 
the  French  have  all  had  some,  but  the  Americans  have  been 
very  fortunate,  first,  I  think,  because  they  are  cleaner  than 
the  others ;  second,  because  they  are  more  careful,  and, 
third,  because  they  have  all  been  vaccinated,  and  smallpox 
hasn't  any  show  at  all  with  them. 

Here  is  the  end  of  a  gossipy  letter.  I  have  gossiped  be- 
cause nothing  has  happened  that  was  worth  talking  about 
outside  the  tattle.  Now  that  the  Queen  is  out  of  the  way, 
I  look  to  a  bracing  up  of  things. 

Peking,  February  3,  1901,  Sunday,  fourteenth  day, 
twelfth  moon,  26th  year  of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M. 
Kuang  Hsu. 

Reading  over  your  letter  of  the  12th  again  to-day,  I 
notice  that  you  say  something  about  sables  for  $25  and  the 
like.  I  think  your  judgment  was  right  when  you  said  you 
thought  very  likely  the  story  was  a  fake,  like  most  Jour- 
nal stories.  If  anybody  is  traveling  around  New  York 
with  a  $500  sable  that  he  bought  here  for  $25,  he  paid  the 
$25  for  somebody  to  steal  the  sable  for  him.    He  never 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  247 

bought  it.  Probably  more  tommyrot  has  been  written 
and  spoken  about  the  ridiculous  prices  at  which  things 
have  been  sold  in  Peking  than  was  ever  written  about  any 
event  in  history.  For  a  while  things  did  sell  very  cheap, 
but  it  was  only  for  a  short  time,  and  the  heathen  Chinee 
has  been  making  it  up  ever  since  by  selling  $2  things  for 
$4,  and  the  like. 

As  for  sables,  there  were  comparatively  few  sables  here 
in  the  first  place,  and  those  that  were  looted  were  sold  for 
good  prices — probably  for  a  third  of  what  they  were 
worth.  As  you  know,  the  value  of  sables  runs  up  in  the 
hundreds  and  thousands  of  dollars.  You  can  imagine 
what  sort  of  a  sable  $25  would  buy,  even  assuming  it  was 
got  for  a  third  of  what  it  was  really  worth.  No,  my  dear, 
the  missionaries  know  the  value  of  sable  too  well  to  let 
any  of  them  get  away  at  any  such  price  as  that.  There 
have  been  more  catskins  sold  here  at  $100  apiece  than 
there  have  been  sables  at  $400,  I  can  tell  you  that,  and 
many  possessors  of  the  aforesaid  cat,  proudly  showing 
their  purchases  now  as  sable,  will  have  sad  awakenings 
when  they  ask  people  who  know  something  about  furs  to 
admire  them.  I  will  promise  to  comply  with  your  re- 
quest to  the  letter,  though.  If  I  see  any  $500  sables 
looking  for  purchasers  at  $25  Pll  lay  in  a  stock  of 
them. 

By  the  way,  I  don't  like  sable  a  quarter  as  well  as  I  do 
sealskin.  It  is  not  nearly  so  handsome,  and  I  don't  think 
it  makes  up  half  so  well.  As  for  myself,  I  am  running 
more  to  gods  than  I  am  to  sables.  I  am  the  proud  posses- 
sor at  this  moment  of  twenty-five  brass  gods,  and  I  am 
thinking  seriously  of  adding  to  my  collection  as  soon  as 
the  opportunity  arises.  I  think  that  by  the  time  I  get 
through  I'll  have  a  table  full  of  them,  and  when  I  get 
home  we  will  put  that  table  in  the  heathen  Chinee  corner 
that  you  speak  of,  and  drape  it  with  a  gold  embroidered 
dragon  that  was  the  stand  decoration  of  a  Buddha  in  the 
Forbidden  City.  I've  got  the  gold-embroidered  dragon, 
too.  It  is  on  black  silk  and  looks  fierce  enough  to  eat 
ordinary  mortals. 


248  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

Peking,  February  5,  1901,  being  the  sixteenth  day  of 
the  twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
Kuang  Hsu. 

The  Ministers  and  the  Chinese  Peace  Commissioners 
had  their  first  joint  meeting  to-day,  and,  officially,  peace 
negotiations  may  be  said  to  have  begun.  From  what  I 
learned,  it  was  more  or  less  of  a  cat-and-dog  affair.  The 
Ministers  were  after  heads,  and  Li  Hung  Chang  and 
Prince  Ching  were  trying  to  get  them  to  be  satisfied  with 
little  blood  and  much  banishment.  ,But  the  Ministers  were 
not  to  be  denied.  The  Ministers  wanted  gore.  The  more 
of  it  the  better.  They  wanted  the  head  of  Prince  Tuan, 
Prince  Chuang  Ying  Nien,  Kang  Yi,Chao  Shu  Chiao,  Hsu 
Tung,  Li  Ping  Heng,  Duke  Lan,  Yu  Hsien,  Tung-fu- 
Hsien,  and  two  others.  Li  Hung  Chang  told  them  that 
Kang  Yi,  Hsu  Tung,  and  Li  Ping  Heng  were  dead,  that 
Tung-fu-Hsien ,  and  Prince  Tuan  were  away  off  in  Kansu 
with  a  big  army,  and  would  turn  rebels  if  anybody  tried  to 
get  their  heads ;  that  Ying  Nien  was  a  small  official,  and 
surely  the  great  nations  of  the  earth  wouldn't  look  for 
such  a  little  head ;  that  Chao  Shu  Chiao  was  a  powerful 
friend  of  the  Dowager,  and  that  his  head  was  impossible ; 
but  Li  said  the  Chinese  would  cut  off  the  head  of  Yu 
Hsien  with  pleasure,  and  that  they  would  send  a  silk  cord 
to  Prince  Chuang  to  enable  him  to  strangle  himself. 
Kind,  wasn't  it  ?  I  don't  know  why  I  should  tell  you  all 
of  this,  because  I  have  already  sent  it  to  The  Sun,  and  you 
have  read  it — that  is,  if  you  read  the  Peking  dispatches, 
and  I  suppose  you  do. 

There  has  been  a  great  time  in  the  American  camp  at 
the  Temple  of  Agriculture,  to-day,  and  I  guess  it  will 
be  kept  up  for  a  week  to  come.  A  telegram  came  this 
morning  telling  General  Chaffee  that  the  new  Army  Bill 
had  passed,  and  that  he  had  been  nominated  for  Major- 
General  in  the  regular  army.  He  has  been  a  Major-Gen- 
eral  of  Volunteers  ever  since  he  came  to  China,  but  his 
regular  rank  w^as  only  that  of  a  Colonel  of  Cavalry.  It  is 
a  big  jump  from  Colonel  to  Major-General,  all  at  one  time, 
but  Chaffee  deserves  it.  He  is  a  fine  soldier,  and  he  has 
been  a  very  good  friend  of  mine  since  General  Wilson  went 
away.     The  officers  at  the  camp  started  in  to  celebrate  as 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  249 

soon  as  the  news  reached  them,  and,  as  I  said  before,  I 
guess  that  it  will  keep  up  for  awhile. 

The  Army  Bill  strikes  me  nearer  home.  Lieutenant 
Reeves,  the  Military  Attache  of  the  American  Legation, 
with  whom  I  live,  becomes  a  Captain  under  its  provisions, 
and  he  is  naturally  happy,  and  is  talking  about  doing  some 
celebrating  on  his  own  account.  I  think,  however,  that 
he  will  restrain  himself.  My  friend  P.,  from  whom 
I  get  a  great  deal  of  my  Chinese  news,  is  quite  ill.  I 
shall  miss  him  very  much,  I  assure  you.  He  has  one  of 
those  nasty  bronchial  colds  and  coughs  such  as  I  generally 
enjoy  in  the  Winter,  but  from  which  I  have  been  practi- 
cally free  this  Winter,  thanks,  I  suppose,  to  the  Peking 
climate. 

The  last  letters  I  mailed  you — five,  I  think  there  were — 
went  off  in  the  Legation  dispatch-bag.  They  will  be  put 
in  the  post  at  Washington.  That  will  be  the  postmark  on 
them,  so,  when  you  see  them,  please  don't  assume  that  I 
have  come  home  and  am  liable  to  pop  in  at  any  time.  I 
only  wish  it  was  true,  but  unfortunately  I  am  still  here, 
doing  all  that  I  can,  be  assured,  to  hustle  along  the  slow- 
pokes who  are  running,  or  rather  walking,  things 
along. 

There  is  nothing  more  to  tell  you,  except  that  as  always 
you  have  all  my  love. 

Peking,  February  6,  1901,  the  same  being  the 
eighteenth  day  of  the  twelfth  moon  of  the  26th 
year  of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  K.  Hsu. 

Another  red-letter  day.  I  got  a  letter  from  home,  and 
it  was  even  more  welcome  than  ordinarily,  because  it  said 
that  you  had  received  the  two  packages  I  sent  you  in  the 
Legation  bag  along  in  November,  some  time.  It  was 
dated  December  20,  and  had  not  quite  caught  up  with  the 
latest  news  by  telegraph  yet — that  was  December  25 — 
but  it  was  none  the  less  welcome.  I  hadn't  heard  from 
you  at  all  about  the  packages,  and  I  was  afraid  that  pos- 
sibly they  had  gone  astray.  I  had  given  up  entirely  the 
hope  that  they  would  reach  you  in  time  for  Christmas, 
and  the  fact  that  they  did  just  tickles  me  to  death.  They 
were  pretty  poor  Christmas  presents,  it  is  true,  but  they 


250  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

were  the  best  I  could  get  here,  and  they  showed  all  of 
you  at  least  that  I  hadn't  forgotten  you. 

You  have  acted  wisely  in  not  sending  anything  to  me. 
Of  course  I  would  have  appreciated  a  Christmas  gift, 
away  off  in  China,  but  who  would  have  thought,  even 
when  I  sent  the  packages  to  you,  that  I  would  still  be  here 
to  receive  it  ?  When  Christmas  came,  I  certainly  thought 
that  I  would  have  been  on  my  way  back  home  long  before 
that.  Then,  again,  sending  anything  to  me  out  here  is 
not  like  sending  things  home  to  you.  You  have  a  fixed 
residence.  The  post-office  always  knows  where  to  find 
you.  You  may  have  made  up  your  mind  by  this  time  that 
I  have  a  fixed  residence,  and  that  it  is  in  Peking,  China. 
But  I  haven't,  and  it  is  not  safe  to  send  things  to  me.  I 
might  get  them,  and  I  might  not.  At  all  events,  they  will 
be  just  as  welcome  when  I  get  home. 

I  have  some  more  pretty  things  for  you,  but  I  am  not 
going  to  tell  you  about  them  until  I  get  home  and  can  give 
them  to  you  myself.  You  see,  I  miss  all  the  fun  when  I 
send  them.  I  hope  by  this  time  you  have  received  the 
two  other  packages  I  sent  you  by  mail — I  mean  for  the 
kids'  coats  and  the  belt  buckles.  I  am  not  worrying  about 
them,  though,  for  if  the  other  two  reached  you  all  right, 
surely  they  will,  also. 

Peking,  February  7,  1 901,  being  the  nineteenth  day  of 
the  twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

I  learned  a  new  one  on  the  Chinese  to-day.  Of  course 
you  have  heard  lots  about  the  little  feet  of  the  Chinese 
women,  but  I'll  wager  you  never  did  hear  that  the  Chinese 
gentlemen  were  the  same  sort  of  idiots  and  covet  little 
feet,  too,  and  bind  up  their  feet  to  get  them,  just  as  the 
women  bind  up  theirs.  The  only  reason  they  don't  have 
them  and  that  they  are  not  crippled  like  the  women,  is 
that  they  don't  begin  binding  them  early  in  life. 

I  learned  this  to-day  in  a  rather  unexpected  way.  As 
you  know,  Li  Hung  Chang  has  been  a  very  sick  man  for 
some  time,  and  for  a  year  or  so  before  he  was  sick  he  was 
unable  to  walk.  To-day,  in  asking  about  his  health  from 
one  of  his  closest  friends,  the  reply  I  received  was,  "  Oh, 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  251 

he  is  very  much  better,  but  he  can't  walk,  and  that  keeps 
him  back  a  good  deal."  I  asked  what  the  trouble  was 
with  his  legs,  and  the  friend  told  me  that  there  was  no 
trouble  with  his  legs,  except  that  he  had  not  exercised 
any  for  years  past,  and  that  the  reason  why  he  had  not 
exercised  was  because  his  feet  were  sore.  Then  he  told 
me  the  story  of  this  desire  of  Chinese  gentlemen  to  emu- 
late the  example  of  Chinese  ladies  and  have  small  feet. 

Li  Hung  Chang's  feet,  he  said,  were  frightfully  de- 
formed. Illustrating  how  they  were,  he  put  his  thumb 
under  his  other  fingers,  as  near  the  center  of  his  hand  as 
he  could  get  them,  and  then  the  first  and  third  under  the 
middle  finger,  pyramid  fashion.  Do  you  understand? 
That  made  his  foot  pointed.  He  said  that  in  Li's  younger 
days  he  bound  his  toes  to  keep  them  in  that  position,  and, 
of  course,  they  finally  grew  that  way.  Now  he  is  suffer- 
ing the  consequences.  He  has  corns  on  both  sides  of  all 
his  toes,  and  bunions  all  over  the  uncovered  part  of  his 
feet.    Of  course  he  can't  walk. 

This  friend  gave  a  very  amusing  account  of  the  regular 
visit  of  the  corn  doctor  to  the  statesman.  He  said  the 
corn  doctor  brought  with  him  an  array  of  tools  that  would 
fill  a  carpenter's  tool-chest.  There  were  saws  of  all  sizes, 
hammers,  and  a  dozen  different  styles  of  knives,  and 
pincers  of  all  sizes,  and  what  not.  He  laid  all  these  out 
before  the  patient,  and  then  got  hold  of  a  foot  and  started 
to  work  on  it.  A  part  of  the  profession  of  a  corn  doctor 
in  China  is  to  convince  his  patient  that  a  corn  is  a  little 
tack  of  flesh  that  peels  off  the  foot  and  then  is  forced  into 
it  again  by  the  shoe.  So  the  doctor  cuts  around,  and 
swings  his  saws,  uses  his  scissors,  and  finally  gets  the  corn 
round  and  sharp  at  the  inner  point.  Then  he  takes  a  pair 
of  tongs,  or  tweezers,  and  with  a  quick  jerk  he  pulls  out  a 
pointed  piece  of  hard  flesh  and  holds  it  up  in  front  of  the 
patient's  eyes  to  show  that  it  is  really  a  tack  of  flesh. 
What  object  he  can  have  in  convincing  a  patient  that  a 
corn  is  such  a  thing  I  can't  imagine,  but  probably  the  first 
corn  doctor  in  China  had  some  object  in  convincing  his 
first  patient  that  it  was  so,  and  all  his  successors  have  fol- 
lowed his  example,  not  knowing  themselves  what  they 
did  it  for. 


252  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

This  friend  of  Li's  told  me  that  Li's  son,  who  is  twenty- 
six  years  old,  is  already  in  almost  as  bad  shape  as  his 
father.  He  said  the  young  man's  feet  were  in  awful  con- 
dition. He  gave  me  the  further  information  that  the  last 
bath  that  Li  had  was  in  August.  Li  sticks  to  the  custom 
of  all  his  countrymen.  They  never  wash  from  the  time 
when  warm  weather  ends  until  it  begins  again.  Of  course 
they  wash  their  faces  and  hands.  To  do  that  they  use  a 
small  teacupful  of  water  a  day — no  more  and  no  less. 
They  take  the  tips  of  their  fingers,  wet  them  in  the  cup, 
and  draw  them  over  their  faces.  That  constitutes  the 
day's  wash.  Nor  do  they  change  their  clothing  from  the 
end  of  warm  weather  to  the  beginning  of  it.  In  Summer 
they  change  once  a  month,  regularly,  but  as  soon  as  it 
begins  to  get  cold  they  put  on  their  heavy  clothing,  and 
after  that  they  add  to  or  take  from  the  garments  as  they 
need,  according  to  the  weather.  They  never  take  off 
those  within  three  or  four  thicknesses  of  the  skin.  They 
are  a  fine  lot,  are  they  not? 

Peking,  February  8,  iQoi,  being  the  twentieth  day  of 
the  twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the  reign  of 
H.  L  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

There  is  no  word  from  the  Chinese  yet  about  what  they 
propose  to  do  in  the  matter  of  heads — whether  they 
will  give  enough  to  go  around,  one  for  each  Minister,  or 
not.  I  hope  they  will,  I  am  sure.  I  should  hate  to  see  any 
of  the  Ministers  disappointed.  A  head  is  such  a  rare 
souvenir,  too.  I  am  afraid  if  any  of  the  Ministers  should 
be  left  without  one  for  a  parlor  ornament  he  would  be 
broken-hearted.  Really,  I  suppose,  they  have  not  de- 
manded too  many  heads  at  all,  but  twelve  seems  a  lot,  and 
I  can't  reconcile  myself  to  that  part  of  the  demand  where 
they  insist  on  the  heads  of  these  dead  men.  Without  any 
joking,  it  seems  to  me  that  they  have  overreached  them- 
selves in  demanding  that  the  sentence  of  death  be 
passed  on  the  dead. 

In  China,  the  law  is  that  when  a  man  is  sentenced  to 
death  and  is  decapitated,  the  punishment  does  not  cease 
then.  His  children,  if  he  has  any,  are  deprived  of  any 
offices  they  may  hold.    His  property  is  all  confiscated  to 


ORDERED    TO    CHIN  A  263 

the  Government,  and  his  wife  and  family  are  left  paupers. 
Now,  that  may  be  all  right  in  China,  but  I  do  not  think  it 
could  happen  in  any  civilized  country,  and  I  don't  think  that 
civilized  people  approve  of  visiting  the  sins  of  the  father 
in  any  such  fashion.  The  Ministers  want  the  sentence  of 
death  passed  on  these  dead  men  for  the  reason  that  they 
want  the  families  to  suffer  all  the  rigors  of  the  Chinese 
law.  If  that  is  not  bloodthirsty  and  uncivilized,  then  I 
don't  know  what  is. 

What  possible  satisfaction  it  can  be  to  the  great  and 
rich  nations  of  the  world  to  impose  poverty  and  further 
disgrace  on  women  and  children  I  can't  see,  and  I  don't 
believe  that  when  the  people  at  home  understand  exactly 
what  is  demanded  and  the  reasons  for  it  they  will  agree 
to  any  such  thing.  I  confess  that  I  am  getting  a  good 
deal  of  the  sentiment  in  such  matters  knocked  out  of  me, 
but  there  are  lengths  to  which  even  so  hard-hearted  a 
wretch  as  myself  cannot  reconcile  his  conscience,  and  this 
is  one  of  them.  Well,  we  will  see  what  will  come  of  it 
all.  Whatever  is  to  come  of  it,  I  hope  will  come  quickly, 
for  I  am  getting  tired  of  waiting.  And  I  am  afraid,  if  this 
keeps  up  much  longer,  I'll  get  a  thirst  for  heads  myself. 

Peking,  February  9,  1901,  being  the  twenty-first  day 
of  the  the  twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the 
reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

This  moon  is  waning,  and  the  New  Year  is  nigh  unto 
us  Chinamen.  Ten  days  more  and  we  shall  be  right  in 
the  midst  of  the  festival  season.  There  is  not  much  to 
tell  you  to-day  other  than  that  my  missionary  friend,  the 
Rev.  A.,  is  out  of  limbo.  I  forget  now  whether  I  told 
you  about  his  case  or  not. 

Quite  a  long  while  ago  he  had  a  scheme  for  collecting 
damages  for  all  of  his  native  Christians  and  his  church 
from  the  Chinese  themselves.  He  went  around  to  some 
forty  villages  and  collected  about  80,000  taels.  A  few 
days  ago  he  went  back  there  and  was  promptly  arrested  at 
the  instigation  of  some  Roman  Catholics.  It  appears  that 
they  had  the  same  sort  of  a  scheme,  but  A.  got  there 
first,  and  when  they  went  around  to  these  same  villages 
to  make  their  collections,  they  found  that  he  had  all 


254  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

the  money  there  was.  Naturally  they  were  enraged,  so 
they  made  complaint  against  A.,  and  declared  that  he  had 
been  blackmailing  the  villages. 

The  French  and  Germans,  both  of  whom  are  notorious 
blackmailers  out  here,  went  after  A.  as  soon  as  they 
heard  that  he  was  back  in  Chon  Chon — rather  resented 
anybody  else  blackmailing  in  their  field,  don't  you  see? — 
and  they  arrested  him.  He  sent  in  to  the  Minister  here, 
and  we  kicked  up  such  a  row  about  the  matter  that  A. 
has  been  released,  and  both  the  French  and  the  Ger- 
mans insist  that  he  has  never  been  under  arrest.  You  see, 
they  are  a  little  afraid  of  your  Uncle  Samuel  when  he  has 
troops  around. 

A.  isn't  back  from  Chon  Chon,  yet,  and  I  don't  know 
what  he  will  say  to  that  story.  He  will  insist  that  he  was 
arrested,  of  course,  but  I  guess  that,  whether  he  was  or 
not,  the  incident,  so  far  as  anything  serious  is  concerned, 
at  least,  is  closed.  I  really  think,  myself,  that  A. 
might  have  left  a  little  for  the  Catholics.  I  don't  like  to 
see  a  man  take  it  all,  even  if  he  is  a  missionary. 

There  is  a  big  celebration  going  on  down  at  the  camp 
to-night,  and  I  thank  the  Lord  that  I  am  not  living  down 
there,  and  that  I  am  not  in  it.  There  will  be  the  finest 
collection  of  heads  in  the  morning,  I  am  thinking,  that 
China  has  ever  seen.  It  is  the  wind-up  of  the  celebration 
over  the  passage  of  the  Army  Bill  and  the  making  of 
Chafifee  a  Major-General  in  the  regular  army.  The  Gen- 
eral himself  is  being  dined  by  the  Minister  and  the  peo- 
ple of  the  Legation.  It  is  purely  a  Legation  affair,  so  I 
am  not  in  it,  and  I  am  just  as  glad  that  I  am  not,  too,  for, 
as  you  know,  if  there  is  anything  in  the  world  that  I  don't 
like,  it  is  a  public  dinner  of  any  sort. 

I  have  had  a  pretty  hard  week's  work,  and  I  am  tired, 
and  I  am  going  to  bed  right  now.    So,  good-night. 

Peking,  February  lo,  1901,  being  the  twenty-second 

day  of  the  twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the 

reign  of  Kuang  Hsu. 

Hold  your  breath  now,  and  don't  get  excited  while  I 

yell  Wow-wow-wow!    I'm  coming  home!     Leastwise,  I 

think  so.    I  got  that  letter  from  H.  R,  this  morning,  and  I 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  266 

(quote  from  it :  "  Mr.  Laffan  has  written  me  once  or  twice 
on  the  subject  of  letting  you  come  home,  now  that  the 
prospect  of  further  serious  military  operations  is  disap- 
pearing. Unless  the  situation  should  change  materially 
meantime,  I  presume  you  will  receive  instructions  to  start 
back  soon  after  receiving  this  letter.  By  the  way,  will  you 
please  say  at  the  end  of  one  of  your  cables  after  this 
reaches  you  '  Chamberlin's  letter  received.'  "  I  take  that 
to  mean  that  they  are  just  waiting  until  I  get  the  letter  to 
tell  me  that  my  sentence  has  been  commuted. 

They  wanted  me  to  get  the  letter  first  because  they  have  a 
lot  of  things  they  want  me  to  do  on  the  way  home.  I'll  go 
from  here  to  Tokio,  the  capital  of  Japan,  and  get  a  corre- 
spondent there,  and  then  to  Hong  Kong,  and  get  one 
there.  Meantime,  I'll  stop  at  Shanghai  again.  From 
Hong  Kong  I'll  go  to  Calcutta  in  India,  and  across  India 
to  Bombay,  stopping  at  Allahabad  on  the  way.  From 
Bombay  I'll  go  straight  to  Europe,  by  way  of  the  Suez, 
and  thence  home.  That  sounds  like  a  tremendous  journey, 
doesn't  it,  but  it  is  all  on  the  way  home,  and  it  won't  take 
more  than  a  few  weeks  longer,  at  the  outside,  than  it  would 
take  to  go  back  the  way  I  came,  across  the  Pacific.  This 
is  the  loth  of  February,  and  I  hope  that  by  the  latter  part 
of  March,  or  at  farthest  by  the  early  part  of  April,  I'll 
be  back  home  with  you.  Isn't  that  pretty  good  news  for 
one  day,  and  a  Sunday  at  that?  You  will  pardon  me, 
if  I  do  not  write  any  longer  letter  on  this  occasion.  I 
think  I'll  have  to  join  the  Chaffeeites  and  do  a  little  cele- 
brating on  my  own  account. 

Peking,  February  12,  1901,  being  the  twenty-fourth 
day  of  the  twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the 
reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

The  letter  I  wrote  you  on  Sunday,  I  think,  contained 
good  enough  news  to  excuse  my  failure  to  write  you  yes- 
terday. I  haven't  had  a  telegram  yet  telling  me  to  start 
home,  but  I  am  expecting  one  daily.  I  don't  suppose  I 
can  start  much  before  March  i,  anyway,  so  it  doesn't 
make  much  difference.  You  see,  we  are  still  frozen  up 
here  in  Peking — that  is,  the  river  is  frozen  and  the  bay  at 
Taku,  and  to  get  out  of  the  country  it  is  necessary  to  go 


256  ORDERED    TO^CHINA 

up  to  Shanhaikwan  and  take  a  steamer  there  to  Japan. 
The  trip  is  a  long  one,  and  as  the  river  will  be  open  about 
March  i,  anyway,  I  see  no  use  of  going  to  all  the 
discomfort.  I  will  get  away  practically  as  quickly  by 
waiting.  Besides  that,  several  days  may  elapse  before  I 
get  my  orders.  I  can  tell  you  they  can't  come 
too  quick  for  me.  I  want  to  get  home,  but,  be- 
sides that,  I  have  had  enough  of  China.  A  lit- 
tle of  it,  as  you  have  probably  seen  from  my  letters, 
goes  a  long  way.  I  am  tired  of  pigtails  and  dirty  faces, 
and  bleary  eyes,  and  the  never-ending  call  of  "  low  yah, 
low  yah."  That  isn't  the  way  it  is  spelled,  but  that  is  the 
way  it  sounds.  It  means,  ''  Kind  sir,  kind  sir,  have  pity." 
It  is  the  cry  of  the  beggar,  and  it  is  heard  on  every  hand 
here  in  China.  Begging  is  a  profession,  and  there  is  a 
society  of  beggars — a  sort  of  a  protective  society,  like  a 
labor  union.  If  a  man  doesn't  belong  to  it  he  can't  have  a 
comfortable  stand  on  the  street  and  beg  at  ease,  as  it  were. 
Most  of  the  beggars  are  the  horrible  creatures  you  have 
read  about.  Many  of  them  are  blind,  many  are  armless 
or  legless;  and  some  of  them  cultivate  great  sores  on 
their  bodies  and  heads.  Practically  all  of  their  injuries 
are  self-inflicted,  so  it  is  impossible  to  have  any  pity  for 
them,  and  their  cries  are  tantalizing.  I  can  tell  you, 
nothing  will  make  me  happier  than  to  shake  the  dust  of 
Peking  from  my  feet,  dig  it  from  my  eyes,  blow  it  from 
my  nose,  and  shovel  it  out  of  my  ears  for  the  last  time.  I 
think  I'll  dance  a  can-can  and  sing  a  song  of  joy. 

Peking,  February  14,  1901,  being  the  twenty-sixtK 
day  of  the  twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the 
reign  of  Kuang  Hsu,  H.  I.  M. 

It  seems  to  me  that  in  civilization  this  is  Valentine's 
Day.  They  don't  have  any  such  thing  in  China,  and  I 
don't  know  what  made  me  think  of  it.  I  haven't  had  any 
valentine  to  remind  me  of  it,  I  can  assure  you.  As  I  said 
in  a  letter  I  wrote  you  the  day  before  yesterday,  the  val- 
entine that  would  strike  me  best  is  the  telegram  that  I 
expect  to  get.  It  is  still  in  the  gloaming,  but  it  certainly 
can't  be  delayed  long,  even  if  the  Chinese  do  continue  to 
kick  and  raise  Cain,  and  say  they  won't  give  any  more 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  257 

heads.  They  are  putting  up  what  we  might  call  a  great 
bluff,  and  they  are  capable  of  maintaining  it  just  a  cer- 
tain time.  By  and  by  the  allies  will  put  up  a  bigger  one, 
and  then  the  Chinaman  will  come  down  so  quickly  that  it 
will  make  his  head  swim.  This  will  all  happen,  I  am 
sure,  long  before  you  get  this  letter,  and  I  opine  that  the 
heads  that  are  to  fall  will  do  so,  too. 

I  have  told  Reeves  that  I  expect  to  get  orders  within  a 
few  days  to  start  home,  and  he  is  grieving  over  it.  It  will 
leave  him  in  our  Boxer  Temple  alone.  He  doesn't  like 
that  a  bit.  I  tell  him  to  get  somebody  else  to  come  and 
live  with  him,  but  he  doesn't  seem  to  like  that  idea  much 
better  either.  We  certainly  have  gotten  along  finely  to- 
gether. I  attended  a  dinner  yesterday  (and  that  is  why 
I  didn't  write).  It  was  given  by  the  Associated  Press 
men  to  General  Chaffee.  I  didn't  want  to  go,  but  it  was  one 
of  those  cases  where,  if  I  hadn't  gone,  they  would  have 
said  that  it  was  because  the  dinner  was  given  by  a  man 
on  a  rival  concern,  so  I  went  and  nearly  froze  to  death. 
To-day  I  am  decidedly  under  the  weather.  The  dinner 
was  given  at  the  International  Club,  the  dining  room  of 
which  is  as  big  as  a  large-sized  barn.  There  was  just  one 
little  stove  in  it,  and  I  guess  everybody  caught  cold.  The 
dinner  wasn't  good,  either.  The  reason  for  that  was  that 
nobody  in  Peking  knew  how  to  get  or  cook  a  good  dinner. 
In  spite  of  all  this,  though,  we  had  a  pretty  good  time. 
Everybody  had  to  make  a  speech  to  General  Chaffee,  who, 
as  you  know,  has  just  been  made  a  Major-General  in  the 
regular  army. 

Peking,  February  i6,  1901,  the  same  being  the  twen- 
ty-eighth day  of  the  twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year 
of  the  reign  of  Kuang  Hsu. 

I  am  getting  over  my  cold  fast  and  am  all  hunky-dory 
again.  I  am  pretty  certain  that  my  telegram,  telling  me 
to  come  home,  is  on  the  way,  but  the  telegraph  is  a  good 
deal  like  the  mail  here.  It  never  is  in  any  particular 
hurry  to  get  anywhere,  and  two  or  three  days  spent  in  a 
journey  from  New  York  is  nothing  out  of  the  ordinary, 
though  two  or  three  hours  ought  always  to  suffice.  I 
have  spent  the  last  day  or  two  looking  for  a  man  to  take 


258  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

my  place,  and  I  have  about  half  made  up  my  mind  to 
appoint  a  young  American  artist,  who  is  a  friend 
of  Richard  Watson  Gilder.  He  doesn't  know  any- 
thing about  the  newspaper  business,  but  he  is  straight 
and  honest  and  clean  and  gentlemanly,  and  I  think  he  has 
the  making  of  a  man  in  him.  Unless  I  can  do  very  much 
better  I  shall  give  him  a  chance. 

I  was  down  at  the  American  camp  to-day,  and  had  a 
talk  with  General  Chafifee.  I  told  him  that  I  expected  to 
leave  soon.  He  was  genuinely  sorry  about  it,  I  think. 
He  was  very  anxious  that  I  should  go  to  Manila  with  him, 
but  I  think  I  shall  cut  Manila  out  of  my  calculations  en- 
tirely, and  shall  head  stright  for  India  from  Hong 
Kong. 

Everybody  is  getting  ready  here  now  for  the  New  Year 
celebration  which  starts  in  on  the  19th  and  lasts  for  five 
days.  I  guess  I've  told  you  enough  about  that  already. 
I  hope  the  Chinese  will  come  to  their  senses  and  agree  to 
inflict  the  punishments  the  powers  demand  before  the  holi- 
day begins,  but  I  am  afraid  they  won't.  However,  I  am 
not  going  to  worry  about  it. 

Peking,  February  17,  1901,  being  the  twenty-ninth 
day  of  the  twelfth  moon  of  the  26th  year  of  the 
reign  of  Kuang  Hsu. 

It  came  to-day — the  telegram,  I  mean !  It  was  from 
Mr.  Lord  and  said,  "  Appoint  a  good  man  in  Peking  and 
come  home."  You  bet  I  will,  and  I  won't  let  any  grass 
grow  under  my  feet.  Good  men  in  Peking,  however,  are 
hard  to  find.  There  are  only  thirty  or  forty  Americans  here 
who  are  going  to  stay  here,  and  they  differ  only  in  degrees 
of  badness  when  they  are  considered  as  newspaper 
propositions.  Hunting  for  a  good  man  would  be  like 
Diogenes  hunting  for  an  honest  one.  I  would  need  a  deal 
bigger  lantern  than  he  carried.  I  shall  not  waste  my 
time  hunting  for  a  good  man,  but  I'll  do  my  best  looking 
for  the  least  bad  one,  and  I  guess  the  young  man  whom 
I  mentioned  in  a  letter  to  you  a  day  or  so  ago  will  turn  out 
to  be  that  one,  for  the  more  I  see  of  him  the  better  I  like 
him,  and  the  better  man  I  think  he'll  make  with  some 
experience.      I    told    Mr.  J.   that  I   was  going  home 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  259 

to-day,  and  he  insisted  on  my  taking  a  set  of  the  altar 
ornaments  that  once  decorated  the  Temple  of  Heaven. 
There  are  five  in  the  set — four  incense  burners  and  a 
libation  cup.  They  are  not  very  handsome,  but  they  are 
real  curios,  and  they  will  make  quite  a  valuable  addition 
to  the  bronzes  that  I  already  had.  They  are  made  of 
bell  metal,  and,  when  polished,  will  look  like  pure  brass. 
They  were  made  during-  the  reign  of  Chen  Lung,  which 
was  contemporaneous  with  the  reign  of  George  Washing- 
ton in  the  United  States,  so  they  are  considerably  over  a 
hundred  years  old.  I  shall  begin  to  pack  my  sixty-seven 
gods  to-morrow.  You  will  notice  I  write  "  gods  "  with  a 
little  g.  Funny,  isn't  it?  When  I  came  out  here  I  had 
only  one  God  and  now  I  have  sixty-seven  others.  One  of 
them  is  a  fat  old  god  of  Wealth  made  of  copper  and  with 
a  laughing  face  that  makes  one  laugh  every  time  it  is 
seen.  A  lot  of  them  are  lady  gods.  They  are  nearly  all 
of  them  brass,  but  I  have  some  Chinese  lady  gods  that 
are  made  of  copper.  I  guess  that  altogether  I  must  have 
500  pounds  of  them.  How  I  am  going  to  get  them  away 
with  me  I  cannot  for  the  moment  imagine,  but  I'll  manage 
some  way.  I  hope  that  when  I  get  them  home  they  don't 
charge  me  $300  or  $400  duty  on  them.  If  they  do,  I 
think  I'll  roll  them  off  to  the  end  of  the  dock  and  drop 
them  into  the  North  River.  I  think  a  good  deal  of  my 
gods,  but  not  that  much,  though,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I 
have  no  doubt  that  they  are  worth  $1,000  or  more  in  the 
States  as  curios. 

Well,  I  must  go  to  the  telegraph  office  and  telegraph 
to  Taku,  to  see  what  the  prospect  of  the  river's  unfreez- 
ing is.  I  can  tell  better  then  what  prospect  there  is  of 
my  getting  out  of  this  heathen  place. 

Peking,  February  19,   1901,  being  the  Chinese  New 

Year,  first  day,  first  moon,  27th  year  of  the  reign 

of  Kuang  Hsu. 

Here's  a  Happy  New  Year  to  you  in  Chinese.     There 

was  a  lot  of  fire-cracker  shooting,  last  night,  and  two  or 

three  times  I  thought  that  the  war  had  started  up  afresh. 

About  5  o'clock  this  morning  I  woke  up  and  looked  out  in 

the  temple  court.     My  idea  was  that  something  wrong 


260  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

was  going  on,  for  there  were  unearthly  sounds  there.  I 
looked  out,  and  there  were  all  the  servants  in  the  com- 
pound, gathered  around  a  table  which  was  loaded  with 
food.  There  were  some  thirteen  or  fourteen  of  them,  and 
they  were  all  dressed  in  Sunday-go-to-meeting  clothes,  I 
can  tell  you — everyone  in  the  finest  silks  and  satins,  with 
high-topped  velvet  boots  on.  It  was  the  swellest-looking 
outfit,  I  think,  that  I  have  ever  seen.  While  I  was  look- 
ing a  fire  was  lighted  and  the  whole  crowd  prostrated 
themselves  and  knocked  their  heads  on  the  ground. 

I  found  out  after  the  show  was  over  that  they  were 
giving  the  Kitchen  God  a  send-off.  The  day  before  New 
Year,  according  to  the  Chinese,  the  god  that  presides  over 
the  kitchen  in  Chinese  houses  ascends  to  heaven  and  re- 
ports to  the  big  Joss  the  doings  of  the  family  in  whose 
kitchen  he  has  been  for  the  past  year.  He  is  gone  a  day 
and  then  comes  back  and  goes  to  work  again.  What  he 
tells  the  big  Joss  is  written  down  in  a  big  book  and  stands 
against  the  family  record.  Now  this  Kitchen  God,  the 
Chinese  think,  is  susceptible  to  candy,  so  one  of  the  things 
they  put  on  the  table  when  they  give  him  his  send-off  is 
a  plate  of  taffy.  It  is  made  so  tough  that  it  can't  be 
chewed,  and  woe  to  the  man  who  sets  his  teeth  in  it,  for 
it  will  take  a  crowbar  to  dig  them  out.  The  Chinese  think 
that  the  Kitchen  God,  liking  candy,  sets  his  teeth  in  this 
and  tries  to  chew  it.  He  can't,  and  he  can't  spit  it  out, 
either.  His  jaws  are  literally  glued  together,  and  there 
he  is,  helpless.  He  goes  up  to  the  big  Joss,  who  asks  him 
to  tell  the  bad  things  that  have  happened  in  the  family,  and 
he  doesn't  answer  because  his  mouth  is  stuck  fast.  Then 
the  family  gets  off  without  any  bad  marks.  One  would 
think  that,  after  a  few  years  of  this  kind  of  treatment,  the 
Kitchen  God  would  know  enough  to  let  the  taffy  alone, 
but  he  has  had  his  mouth  glued  up  so-fashion  every  year 
for  hundreds  of  years,  and  he  doesn't  seem  to  learn  any- 
thing at  all  from  experience.  I  watched  that  show  until 
it  was  over  and  then  went  back  to  bed. 

I  went  out  about  lo  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  here, 
there,  and  everywhere  I  saw  men  hurrying  around  with 
lighted  lanterns.  I  couldn't  make  out  what  that  was  all 
about,  so  I  asked.     I  found  that  the  men  with  lanterns 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  261 

were  looking  for  the  people  who  owed  them  money.  As 
I  have  already  told  you,  the  Chinese  New  Year  is  a  time 
when  all  Chinamen  must  pay  at  least  something  on  their 
debts.  It  is  the  custom  for  the  creditor  to  call  on  the 
debtor  and  ask  for  his  money.  When  a  man  has  a  large 
business,  of  course  he  can't  get  to  all  of  his  debtors  before 
midnight  the  day  before  New  Year's  and  he  hasn't  any 
right  to  dun  them  on  New  Year's  Day  itself,  so  he  main- 
tains the  fiction  that  New  Year  hasn't  started  by  going 
around  with  a  lantern.  As  long  as  he  keeps  his  lantern 
lighted  he  is  able  to  assert  that  it  is  the  night  before 
and  not  New  Year's  Day,  and  so  he  reaches  all  his 
debtors. 

When  the  creditor  goes  to  a  debtor's  house,  he  knocks 
on  the  door.  The  debtor  appears  and  tells  him  he  has 
no  money  with  which  to  pay  the  bill,  whereupon  the 
creditor  immediately  sets  up  a  tremendous  howling  and 
alarms  the  neighborhood.  He  calls  the  debtor  all  sorts 
of  names  and  abuses  him  in  every  way  he  can,  all  in  a 
voice  loud  enough  to  let  everyone  in  the  neighborhood 
hear  it.  The  debtor  stands  it  as  long  as  he  can,  and 
then  if  he  is  able  to  give  the  creditor  something  on  the  bill 
the  creditor  grabs  it  and  yells  for  more.  When  he  is 
satisfied  that  the  debtor  hasn't  any  more,  and  that  he  can- 
not disgrace  him  any  farther  in  the  eyes  of  his  neighbors, 
he  goes  away,  shouting  and  grumbling.  Queer  country, 
China,  isn't  it? 

The  day  has  been  full  of  more  or  less  new  experiences 
to  me.  I  walked  downtown  this  afternoon  and  there  was 
on  unearthly  din  going  on  in  most  of  the  shops,  all  of 
which  were  closed  up.  I  asked  about  that,  and  was  told 
that  the  merchants  were  having  a  good  time  celebrating 
the  new  year.  I  heard  that  their  understanding  of  a  good 
time  is  to  equip  themselves  with  drums  and  bells  and  tin 
pans,  lock  themselves  up  with  all  their  relatives,  and  then 
beat  the  drums  and  bells  and  pans  and  make  as  much 
noise  as  they  can.  Of  course,  that's  a  queer  sort  of  pro- 
ceeding, but  I  don't  know  but  that  it  is  as  sensible  as  the 
American  idea  of  getting  drunk  and  raising  Cain  gen- 
erally in  other  people's  places,  and  I  guess  it  doesn't  leave 
any  more  of  a  head,  either. 


262  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

Well,  I  guess  that  is  enough  of  a  New  Year  story, 
seeing  that  it's  the  third  we  have  had  this  year,  and  I'll 
wish  you  a  happy  one  again,  and  say  good-night. 

Peking,  February  21,  1901,  the  same  being  the  third 
day  of  the  first  moon  of  the  27th  year  of  the  reign 
of  H.  I.  M.    K.  Hsu. 

I  am  still  here,  and  likely  to  stay  for  seven  or  eight  days 
yet.  My  telegram  to  Taku  didn't  bring  as  favorable  an 
answer  as  I  expected  it  would.  The  bay  is  still  frozen 
over  and  ships  cannot  come  in.  There  is  no  evidence  that 
the  weather  will  let  up  right  away,  but  it  always  does 
sooner  or  later,  and  there  may  come  a  change  at  any  time, 
so  I  am  not  going  to  be  discouraged,  particularly  on  a 
day  like  this,  when  I  have  enjoyed  a  letter  from  you. 
It  is  true  it  was  pretty  old,  being  dated  December 
29;  nevertheless  it  was  a  very  welcome  one,  and  I  en- 
joyed it  immensely.  I  was  particularly  glad  to  get  it 
because  between  now  and  the  time  when  I  get  home  I 
don't  expect  that  I  will  have  much  in  the  shape  of  news 
from  home.  I  wish  I  could  fix  it  so  that  I  could  tell  you 
where  I  shall  be  on  given  dates,  but  I  can't  do  that,  for  I 
don't  know  myself.  I  shall  strike  London,  however,  and 
I  hope  when  I  get  there  to  find  some  letters  from  you. 
If,  when  you  get  this  letter,  you  write  me,  addressing  it 
care  of  the  Laffan  Bureau,  London,  I  shall  get  it  be- 
fore I  sail  on  my  last  lap  for  home.  Don't  forget, 
now. 

There  was  one  piece  of  good  news  to-day.  Early  this 
evening  the  Chinese  Peace  Commissioners  sent  a  mes- 
senger around  to  the  Ministers  asking  them  if  they  would 
be  satisfied  if  Ying  Nien  and  Chao  Shu  Chiao,  two  of  the 
Cabinet  Ministers,  would  strangle  themselves.  The  Min- 
isters had  demanded  that  these  two  should  be  beheaded 
along  with  some  others.  I  have  already  told  you  the  deli- 
cate way  the  Chinese  Emperor  has  of  inviting  a  man  to  quit 
this  world  with  the  least  possible  hurt  to  his  (the  man's) 
feelings ;  that  is,  to  send  him  a  handsomely  mounted 
silk  cord  in  a  box — a  silk  girdle,  is,  I  believe,  the  name  of 
it  officially.  The  recipient  puts  on  the  girdle  within 
twenty-four  hours.    He  puts  it  on  his  neck  and  draws  it 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  263 

tight,  with  the  natural  consequence, — he  dies  for  want  of 
breath.  Some  of  the  Ministers  to-day  didn't  think  it 
would  be  a  happy  solution  of  the  difficulty  here  to  let  the 
Government  hint  to  these  gentlemen  that  their  room  was 
better  than  their  company,  but,  as  the  result  in  any  case 
would  be  a  dead  Chinaman,  they  finally  consented.  At 
least  I  think  they  did,  and,  if  they  did,  then  undoubtedly 
there  will  be  a  decree  out  in  a  day  or  two  consenting  to  all 
the  demands  of  the  powers  relating  to  punishments,  and 
that  will  be  the  beginning  of  the  end  of  all  the  trouble, 
as  well  as  of  a  number  of  Qiinamen  who  have  lived  in 
this  world  too  long  and  will  undoubtedly  be  better  off  in 
the  Chinese  happy  hunting-grounds. 

With  this  bit  of  society  gossip,  I'll  close  for  the  day. 

Peking,  February  22,,  1901,  the  same  being  the  fifth 
day  of  the  first  moon  of  the  27th  year  of  the  reign 
of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

Well,  my  sweetheart,  I  am  neither  a  prophet  nor  the 
son  of  a  prophet,  but  that  edict  that  I  told  you  would  be 
along  in  a  day  or  two  is  at  hand.  The  two  gentlemen 
whose  names  I  mentioned  will  get  their  silk  girdles  to-day, 
and  the  edict  directs  the  two  to  use  them  on  the  sixth  day 
of  the  first  moon,  which  is  to-morrow,  Sunday.  "  The  bet- 
ter the  day  the  better  the  deed,"  did  I  hear  you  say  ?  The 
Governor  is  appointed  to  go  down  and  watch  them  do  it. 
Prince  Chuang  is  also  to  get  the  silk  girdle  to-day,  and  a 
number  of  other  gentlemen  are  to  have  their  heads 
chopped  off,  all  of  which  I  trust  will  satisfy  the  powers. 
You  will  forgive  the  ribald  way  in  which  I  speak  of  these 
things,  but  really  I  have  lived  so  long  in  China,  now,  that 
I  seem  to  have  some  of  that  disregard  for  human  life 
(somebody  else's  human  life)  which  is  such  a  distinguish- 
ing feature  of  the  Chinese  character,  and  then  you  can't 
have  much  pity  for  some  of  these  fellows. 

For  instance,  there  are  two  men  here  in  the  hands  of  the 
Japs  whose  death  is  demanded  by  the  powers  and  whose 
execution  is  ordered  by  the  edict  that  I  speak  of.  One 
of  them  is  Hsu  Ching  Yu.  Hsu  was  the  Vice  President 
of  the  Board  of  Punishments — the  same  board  which  is 
now  to  behead  him — and  his  father  was  one  of  the  Min- 


264  ORDEREDTOCHINA 

isters  of  the  T'suang  Li  Yamen.  They  were  both  bad 
eggs,  and  did  all  they  could  to  bring  about  the  killing  of 
all  the  foreigners,  but  the  son  was  the  worst.  They  lived 
in  Legation  Street,  which  some  two  years  ago  was  mac- 
adamized and  made  a  decent  road.  When  that  was  done 
the  old  man  said  that  it  was  the  work  of  the  foreign 
devils,  and  he  would  never,  never,  use  the  street.  To 
avoid  using  it  he  built  the  back  entrance  of  his  house  into 
a  front  entrance,  and  cut  a  path  from  it  over  to  the 
nearest  Chinese  street,  and  he  always  used  that.  He 
declared  that  he  never  could  be  happy  until  he  lined  the 
inside  of  his  coat  with  the  hide  of  a  foreign  devil. 

With  all  that,  though,  the  son  was  worse.  When  the 
relief  came  to  Peking,  the  father  and  son  talked  matters 
over.  The  son  said,  "  There  is  only  one  thing  to  do,  Pa. 
That  is  to  commit  suicide." 

"  I'll  never  do  that,"  said  the  old  gentleman.  "  The 
foreign  devils  can't  make  me  do  that." 

"  Of  course  they  can't.  Pa,"  said  the  young  hopeful, 
"  but  if  we  don't  do  it  the  foreign  devils  will  cut  off  our 
heads  and  then  we'll  be  in  a  fine  fix.  I  tell  you.  Pa,  it's 
the  only  thing  to  do." 

"  Well,  son,  I  don't  want  to  cross  the  dark  river  alone. 
Now,  if  I  do  it,  will  you  come  with  me  ?  " 

"  Sure,"  said  the  son.  "  You  don't  suppose,  Pa,  that 
I'd  let  you  go  alone." 

I  must  digress  here  to  say  that  the  old  man  was  worth 
a  mint  of  money  and  the  young  one  wasn't  worth  a  tooth- 
pick, and  while  the  latter  was  advising  his  father  to  com- 
mit suicide  he  was  mentally  calculating  what  a  fine  time 
he  would  have  when  the  old  man  was  gone.  To  proceed 
with  the  story : 

"  Sure,  Pa,"  said  the  son,  "  you  don't  think  I'd  let  my 
poor  old  dad  go  alone." 

The  old  man  studied  a  while  and  then  said,  "  All  right, 
son,  if  you'll  go  I'll  go,  too." 

At  this  the  young  man  got  a  rope  and  with  true  affec- 
tion assisted  the  old  man  to  put  it  around  his  neck  and 
then  helped  him  up  on  a  stool  and  threw  the  end  of  the 
rope  over  a  rafter  and  made  it  fast.  Getting  down  he 
called,  "All  ready.  Pa?"     "Ready,"  said  the  old  man, 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  265 

and  the  dutiful  son  kicked  the  stool  out  from  under  the 
sire  and  stepped  back. 

At  this  moment  half  a  dozen  of  the  old  man's  servants 
rushed  in  and  would  have  saved  him,  but  the  young  man 
waved  them  aside  with  his  sword  and  said,  "  Stand  back; 
give  him  time  to  die."  When  he  was  sure  that  the  old 
man  was  dead  he  let  the  servants  cut  him  down  and  then 
he  went  out  and  began  to  spend  the  old  man's  money. 
He  was  engaged  in  that  pursuit  when  the  Japs  got 
him. 

Now,  that  is  a  true  story  of  Chinese  filial  affection,  and 
I  submit  the  matter  to  you.  Can  you  waste  any  sympathy 
over  the  coming  death  of  such  a  person  ?  You  have  often 
seen  over  the  head  of  dispatches  about  war  matters  in 
newspapers  the  words  "  Delayed  in  transmission."  Well, 
that  is  just  the  way  I  look  on  the  execution  of  this  man. 
He  has  simply  been  delayed  in  transmission.  This  letter, 
though,  is  stretching  out  to  an  interminable  length  and  I 
must  bite  it  off. 

Peking^  February  25,  1901,  being  the  seventh  day  of 
the  first  moon  of  the  27th  year  of  the  reign  of  H. 
I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

Yesterday  was  Sunday — Execution  Day,  we  might  call 
it.  There  wasn't  any  news,  so  I  didn't  write.  Last  night 
I  dined  at  the  Minister's.  I  had  told  him  that  I  was 
going  home  and  he  said  I  must  certainly  dine  with  him 
again  before  I  went,  so  I  accepted.  He  had  quite  a  party. 
I  didn't  get  home  until  nearly  i  o'clock,  and  I  didn't  feel 
like  writing  after  that  hour. 

I  got  bad  news  to-day.  It  was  the  sinking  of  the  Rio 
Janeiro  near  San  Francisco  with  a  large  loss  of  life  and 
a  lot  of  mails.  It  was  the  loss  of  the  mails  that  affected 
me  personally.  I  do  not  know  whether  there  were  any 
letters  aboard  for  you  from  me  or  not.  I  know  I  sent  off 
a  batch  along  in  January,  about  the  time  the  mail  to  catch 
that  boat  closed,  and  it  would  be  just  my  luck  to  have 
them  on  it.  Did  I  hear  you  say,  "  Thank  goodness,  some- 
thing has  happened  to  relieve  me  from  the  necessity  of 
reading  a  lot  of  trash?  "  Well,  I  don't  blame  you,  for  I 
fear  I  have  been  a  trifle  prolific  on  this  trip.     However, 


266  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

when  I  do  write  daily  letters  I  like  to  have  you  get  them. 
Possibly  my  fear  in  this  case  is  unjustified.  You  can  tell, 
though,  by  the  date  and  the  number  on  the  letters.  If 
there  is  a  long  lapse  in  the  dates  you  can  charge  it  to  the 
post-office  department.  If  there  isn't,  then  my  letters 
didn't  get  that  boat  and  it  is  all  right.  I  have  been  hus- 
tling for  information  about  when  it  will  be  possible  to  leave 
here,  and  I  think  I'll  begin  that  dust-ridding  process  in 
about  three  days.  The  ist  of  March  will  see  me  heading 
homeward,  or  Tien-Tsin-ward,  at  least.  I  may  have  to 
wait  a  while  in  Tien  Tsin  to  get  a  boat  to  Japan  or  Shang- 
hai, but  if  I  once  get  to  either  of  those  places  I  shall  at 
least  be  on  my  way,  and  I  am  very  nervous  to  get  started. 
To-morrow  I  think  I'll  do  my  last  bit  of  work.  It  will  be 
to  witness  the  beheading  of  that  young  man  I  told  you 
about  yesterday  and  the  other  man  the  Japs  have.  I  have 
made  up  my  mind  to  appoint  the  young  man  I  mentioned 
in  a  previous  letter  to  take  my  place,  and  I  shall  wind  up 
afifairs  with  more  or  less  of  a  clear  conscience.  I've  done 
the  best  I  could,  at  any  rate,  and  no  man  could  do  any 
better  than  that.  Here's  hoping  that  the  office  is  satis- 
fied with  it  and  that  I'll  be  with  you  all  soon  again. 

Peking,  February  27,  1901,  ninth  day,  first  moon,  27th 
year  of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

I  saw  the  two  executions  yesterday.  I  officially  ap- 
pointed    to  succeed  me.     My  work  here  is  done. 

I  start  homeward  to-morrow.  How  is  that  for  a  batch 
of  news  ?  I  know  you  don't  like  to  read  about  executions, 
so  all  I  will  tell  you  about  them  is  that  they  were  per- 
formed in  the  presence  of  a  huge  crowd  made  up  of 
garlic-eating  Chinamen,  and  the  air  smelled  to  heaven 
from  their  breath.  After  the  executions  the  heads  were 
sewed  on  again,  which  is  quite  contrary  to  Chinese  cus- 
tom, and  the  show  was  over.  I  have  been  completing  my 
packing  to-day.  I  am  all  ready  to  start  now,  and  I  have  to 
attend  a  dinner  to-night.  Major-General  Chaffee  is  giv- 
ing me  a  farewell  send-off  at  the  camp,  and  as  soon  as 
I  finish  this  letter  I'll  put  on  my  best  togs,  which  I  have  in 
the  top  of  my  trunk,  and  I'll  be  off.  I'll  cut  this  off  here 
and  finish  when  I  get  back. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  267 

12  A.  M.  Well,  I've  had  my  send-off.  General  Chaffee 
had  quite  a  Httle  party  to  see  that  it  was  properly  done, 
and  I  received  all  sorts  of  good  wishes.  Colonel  Heistand, 
the  Adjutant-General,  made  me  blush  by  saying,  "  Cham- 
berlin,  you  go  leaving  none  but  friends  behind  you." 
That  was  pretty  nice,  wasn't  it?  General  Chaffee  said, 
among  other  things,  "  We  have  enjoyed  having  you  with 
us,  and  we  are  very  sorry  to  have  you  go.  We  shall 
always  remember  you  with  the  best  feeling."  Every- 
body else  had  something  nice  to  say.  It  was  quite  flatter- 
ing, I  assure  you,  and  even  the  ride  in  the  horrible  Peking 
cart  back  to  the  house  hasn't  shaken  all  the  vanity  out  of 
me.  I  guess  it  will  wear  off,  though.  Good-night.  I 
must  be  up  early  in  the  morning. 

Tien  Tsin,  China,  eleventh  day,  first  moon,  27th  year 
of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

At  last  Peking  is  a  thing  of  the  past.  I  am  only  ninety 
miles  on  my  10,000-mile  journey,  but  it  took  me  all  of 
yesterday  to  make  it  and  from  the  present  outlook  I  guess 
I'll  be  stuck  here  at  least  a  week,  if  not  longer.  The  bay 
is  still  half  full  of  ice  and  the  fleet  of  ships  that  plies  be- 
tween this  port  and  Shanghai  hasn't  started  yet  from 
Shanghai.  It  will  take  them  four  days  to  get  up  here,  a 
day  or  two  to  unload,  another  day  to  load,  and  then  they'll 
b^  ready  to  go  back.  Until  that  time  comes  I'll  have  to 
wait  here,  but  I'm  on  the  road  home,  anyway,  and  that  is 
sufficient  to  keep  me  satisfied  with  life. 

I  said  good-bye  to  Reeves  at  7  o'clock  yesterday  morn- 
ing and  started  out  with  Mr.  J.  for  the  railroad. 
You  can  imagine  the  sort  of  a  journey  it  was  when  you 
know  that  it  was  dark  when  we  reached  Tien  Tsin.  I 
really  think  a  jinrikisha  would  have  made  the  run  in 
quicker  time.  The  railroad  has  been  running  now  for 
several  months,  but  it  doesn't  seem  to  have  improved  any 
at  all.  When  I  got  to  Tien  Tsin  I  went  with  J.  to 
his  house  and  I  am  there  now.  I  shall  stay  with  him  to- 
day and  to-morrow,  when  I  am  to  go  to  the  house  of 
a  young  American  engineer,  who  has  just  con- 
cluded a  tremendous  deal  in  coal-mining  properties  and 
has  cleared  half  a  million  dollars  by  it.     He  wants  me  to 


268  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

spend  the  rest  of  the  time  I  am  in  Tien  Tsin  with  him, 
but  I  have  promised  a  visit  to  Quartermaster-General 
Humphrey  and  I'll  move  again  in  a  couple  of  days.  No 
use  wearing  out  one's  welcome,  don't  you  see?  I  have 
already  in  previous  letters  expatiated  on  Tien  Tsin,  so  I 
won't  bother  you  with  any  more  about  it  now. 

Tien  Tsin,  China,  March  5,  1901,  fifteenth  day,  first 
moon,  27th  year  of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M,  Kuang 
Hsu. 

Yesterday  was  Inauguration  Day  in  the  United  States, 
and  it  was  Moving  Day  in  Tien  Tsin.  I  am  sorry  that 
I  missed  the  inauguration,  but  I  am  glad  that  I  moved.  I 
had  a  pretty  good  time  at  H.'s,  but  I  do  not  know  him 
as  well  as  I  know  General  Humphrey  and  I  am  being 
finely  taken  care  of  here.  The  General  lives  in  a  com- 
pound which  was  formerly  occupied  by  the  missionaries 
of  the  American  Board  of  Missions  and  is  filled  up  with 
American  houses.  I  have  a  room  on  the  second  floor  of 
his  house,  overlooking  a  tennis  court  and  a  lawn.  Major 
Foote,  who  is  the  American  representative  on  the  Tien 
Tsin  Provisional  Gevernment,  lives  with  him.  They  are 
both  of  them  fine  fellows  and  they  know  how  to  take  care 
of  their  guests.  I  called  on  the  Emmonses,  yesterday, 
and  dined  with  them  last  night.  Emmons,  you  will  re- 
member, is  the  Judge  of  the  Provisional  Government, 
about  whom  I  wrote  a  story  when  I  was  here  before. 
They  are  very  nice  people. 

I  have  been  making  a  lot  of  inquiries  about  steamers, 
and  I  think  the  best  that  I  can  do  is  to  take  a  steamer 
leaving  here  Saturday.  The  fleet  of  steamers  I  spoke 
about  in  my  last  letter  to  you  left  Shanghai  yesterday 
morning  and  will  be  up  here  Friday.  The  steamship  men 
say  that  one  or  two  of  them  will  go  out  Saturday  after- 
noon or  Sunday  morning,  and  I  guess  there  is  no  ques- 
tion that  that  is  the  best  I  can  do.  It  means  almost  a 
week  in  this  place,  but  it  is  another  one  of  those  cases 
where  there  is  nothing  else  to  be  done.  This  steamer 
will  probably  get  me  in  Shanghai  about  Thursday  or 
Friday  of  next  week,  and  I  shall  be  able  to  get  a  steamer 
for  Hong  Kong  the  following  day.     A  couple  of  days' 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  269 

stay  there  and  I'll  be  off  for  India  and  fairly  launched  on 
the  way  homeward.  I  promise  you  I  will  not  let  any 
grass  grow  under  my  feet  in  covering  the  distance  be- 
tween Tien  Tsin  anc'  Adelphi  Street,  Brooklyn. 


Tien  Tsin,  March  6,  1901,  being  the  sixteenth  day  of 
the  first  moon  of  the  27th  year  of  the  reign  of 
Kuang  Hsu. 

I've  spent  the  whole  day  gadding  about  Tien  Tsin. 
This  morning  I  went  over  to  the  native  city  and  spent 
the  time  until  lunch  listening  to  the  cases  in  Emmons's 
court.  The  court  was  just  the  same,  only  there  was  not 
so  much  beating,  and  so  there  isn't  anything  to  tell  you 
about.  I  drove  around  the  wall  of  the  old  city,  which 
is  being  torn  down.  This  wall  was  built  more  than  500 
years  ago  and  was  one  of  the  best  in  the  whole  Chinese 
Empire.  It  is  forty  feet  high  and  fifty  feet  thick.  You 
can  imagine  what  a  massive  affair  it  is.  The  allies  are 
tearing  it  down,  chiefly  as  a  reminder  to  China.  Every 
time  a  Chinaman  thinks  of  the  wall  he  will  remember  what 
it  was  that  brought  about  its  razing,  and  will  remember  to 
be  good.  At  least,  that  is  the  theory.  The  way  it  will 
work  out,  if  I  know  anything  about  the  Chinese,  is  this : 
The  Chinese  men  and  women  of  to-day  will  tell  their 
children  how  Tien  Tsin  was  once  a  beautiful  city,  with  a 
magnificent  wall  around  it — a  wall  that  had  been  built 
centuries  before  by  their  ancestors ;  that  the  foreign  devils 
came  and  tore  down  this  monument  of  their  ancestors' 
greatness  and  left  the  city  unprotected.  Every  bad 
thing  that  happens  will  be  charged  to  the  tearing  down 
of  the  wall  by  the  foreign  devils,  and  the  young  men  will 
be  taught  that  all  their  troubles  are  directly  traceable  to 
that,  so  under  no  circumstances  must  the  foreign  devils 
be  forgiven.  That  is  the  Chinese  of  it.  I  have  learned 
that  you  can't  deal  with  Chinese  as  you  do  with  other 
people,  and  you  can  count  on  about  everything  that 
happens  having  directly  the  opposite  effect  upon  their 
minds  from  that  which  it  has  on  the  minds  of  Europeans 
or  Americans.  With  which  bit  of  wisdom  I'll  close  this 
letter. 


270  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

Tien  Tsin,  March  7,  1901,  being  the  seventeenth  day, 
first  moon,  27th  year  of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M. 
Kuang  Hsu. 

I  got  three  letters  from  home  to-day,  and  am  accord- 
ingly happy.  Two  were  from  you  and  one  from  the 
youngster.  Your  two  were  dated  January  9  and  16,  and 
W.'s  January  16.  Your  letter  of  January  9  was  the 
first  I  had  received  since  the  one  dated  December  29, 
some  eleven  days  before,  and  the  one  dated  the  i6th  is 
probably  the  last  I  shall  receive  until  I  reach  London  on 
my  way  home,  unless  I  am  lucky  enough  to  intercept 
some  in  Shanghai,  which  I  don't  anticipate.  I  expect 
now  to  reach  Shanghai  in  time  to  get  the  steamer  to 
Hong  Kong,  which  sails  on  the  i6th.  That  will  get  me  to 
Hong  Kong  on  the  20th  and  I  will  sail  from  there  about 
the  25th  for  Singapore,  which  is  almost  on  the  equator. 
From  Singapore  I  will  take  another  ship  to  Calcutta,  in 
India,  and  then  I  will  cross  India  to  Bombay  by  rail. 
There  I'll  take  another  ship  and  go  to  Aden  through  the 
Suez,  possibly  stopping  at  Cairo,  in  Egypt ;  thence  to 
Marseilles  in  France  or  Brindisi  in  Italy,  whence  I  will 
take  a  train  direct  to  Paris.  From  Paris  I'll  go  straight 
to  London  and  then  straight  home,  having  finished  a 
journey  completely  around  the  world.  I  can't  tell  you 
yet  when  you  may  expect  me  to  get  to  Brooklyn,  even 
approximately,  for  I  don't  know  anything  about  the  ships 
after  leaving  Hong  Kong,  but  I  think  it  will  be  in  the 
neighborhood  of  the  ist  of  May.  As  I  have  told  you 
before,  I  shall  not  let  any  grass  grow  under  my  feet. 

You  speak  in  your  letter  of  January  9  of  getting 
twenty-one  letters,  all  in  a  bunch.  I  can't  imagine  what 
could  have  gotten  into  the  mails  to  bring  them  to  you 
that  way.  You  say  they  were  numbered  69  to  75.  Well, 
the  number  of  this  one  is,  if  my  count  is  right,  185,  so 
you  see  what  is  in  store  for  you  yet.  My,  how  I  pity 
you !  You  don't  tell  me  in  your  letter  of  the  i6th 
whether  you  had  finished  reading  the  twenty-one  or  not, 
but  I  presume  you  must  have  done  it.  That's  a  good 
girl ;  stick  at  'em  and  you'll  wade  through  the  lot  to 
clear  water  if  you  do. 

I  haven't  settled  definitely  what  I  shall  take  in  the  way 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  271 

of  a  steamer  to  Shanghai,  but  the  fleet  is  on  its  way  and 
I  have  engaged  passage  on  no  less  than  four  of  them,  all 
alleged  to  sail  Saturday.  I  think  I  ought  to  succeed  in 
catching  one  of  the  four.  Of  course  I'll  stop  at  Cliee 
Foo  on  the  way  down,  but  that  is  only  an  hour  or  so. 

By  the  way,  I  told  you  yesterday,  I  think,  about  the 
tearing  down  of  the  Tien  Tsin  wall.  Well,  to-day  I  had  a 
present  from  General  Humphrey.  It  was  a  stone  that  he 
had  taken  from  the  Great  Chinese  Wall,  which  was  built 
250  B.  c.  I  am  going  to  have  that  cut  up  and  made  into 
paper  weights.  I'll  have  a  little  inscription  put  on  each, 
and  they'll  make  a  fine  souvenir  of  China,  I  think.  Tell 
W.  how  much  I  appreciated  his  letter,  but  tell  him 
the  writing  would  have  been  a  good  deal  better  if  he  had 
gone  to  school  all  Winter. 

On  Board  the  Steamer  Tung  Chow,  MarcH  10,  the 
same  being  the  twentieth  day  of  the  first  moon  of 
the  27th  year  of  the  reign  of  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

Actually  homeward  bound  at  last !  The  steamer  hasn't 
started  yet,  but  I  am  on  board,  bag  and  baggage,  and  we 
are  ready  to  sail  at  any  time.  If  you  remember,  this  is 
the  same  steamer  that  I  came  to  Tien  Tsin  on,  something 
like  six  months  ago.  My  last  three  days  in  Tien  Tsin 
were  such  busy  ones  that  I  actually  didn't  have  a  minute 
to  write,  so  you  must  forgive  me  for  not  writing  you  on 
the  8th  and  9th.  I  got  a  notice  from  the  steamship  com- 
pany at  5  o'clock  yesterday  afternoon,  that  the  passengers 
for  the  Tung  Chozv  would  have  to  leave  Tien  Tsin  by  the 
7.30  A.  M.  train,  so  it  was  almost  a  case  of  run  for  it.  I 
made  it,  all  right,  so  what's  the  difference  ?  I  am  travel- 
ing south  with  J.,  the  head  of  the  Peking  syndi- 
cate. He  is  going  home  too.  He  lives  in  New  York, 
and  he  has  been  out  here  six  years.  Think  of  that !  You 
can  imagine  how  enthusiastic  he  is  at  the  prospect  of 
seeing  his  family  once  more.  The  Tung  Choiv  is  full  of 
passengers,  but  I  don't  know  yet  who  they  are.  I  don't 
care,  anyway.  I'm  coming  home  and  that's  the  im- 
portant part.  There  she  blows ! — the  whistle,  I  mean. 
I'll  cut  this  letter  short  and  go  up  on  deck  to  get  my  last 
look  at  Tong  Ku  and  Taku,     Bad  cess  to  them! 


272  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

On  Board  the  Tung  Chow  off  Taku,  March  ii, 
1 90 1,  being  the  twenty-first  day  of  the  first  moon  of 
the  27th  year  of  the  reign  of  Kuang  Hsu. 

We  are  stuck  on  the  bar !  That  is  a  fine  place  for  a 
respectable  man  of  family  to  be  held  up,  isn't  it?  On  a 
bar !  The  idea !  However,  it  is  not  a  rum  bar,  so  you 
will  have  to  forgive  me.  It  is  the  bar  across  the  entrance 
of  the  harbor  at  Taku.  We  thought,  when  we  started 
away  from  Tong  Ku,  yesterday,  that  there  was  water 
enough  on  the  bar  for  the  Tung  Chow  to  get  across. 
There  is  where  we  missed  it.  She  was  drawing  twelve 
feet,  and  there  was  only  ten  feet  on  the  bar,  so  we  buried 
ourselves  in  two  feet  of  Taku  mud  and  here  we  are  fast. 
The  Captain  says  we  will  get  off  some  time  during  the 
day,  and  that,  as  the  mud  is  good  and  soft,  there  is  no 
need  to  worry,  so  I  am  not  worrying  a  bit.  The  only 
thing  I  growl  at  is  the  delay.  Six  months  in  the  East, 
however,  has  made  me  more  or  less  used  to  delays  and 
I  am  not  even  growling  at  them  very  hard. 

It  rained  and  blew  and  blustered  yesterday  afternoon 
when  we  started,  and  it  has  been  blowing  ever  since,  so 
it  looked  as  if  the  trip  back  to  Shanghai  might  be  as  bad 
a  one  as  the  trip  up  on  the  Tung  CJwzv  was.  I  told  you 
in  my  letters  then  all  about  the  steamer  and  about  the 
Chinese  aboard  and  all  that,  so  there  is  absolutely  noth- 
ing here  to  write  about  now.  We  are  going  to  stop  at 
Che  Foo,  and  after  I  look  that  place  over  I  will  tell  you 
about  it. 

On  Board  the  Tung  Chow,  Che  Foo  Harbor, 
China,  March  13,  1901,  being  the  twenty-third 
day,  first  moon,  27th  year,  H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

I  have  seen  all  that  there  is  to  see  of  Che  Foo  and  am 
back  on  board  the  Tung  Chozv  again,  ready  to  proceed 
south  to  Shanghai.  The  Captain  hasn't  come  on  board 
yet.  He  has  a  friend  on  shore  who  is  suffering  from 
delirium  tremens,  and  he  wants  to  get  him  aboard  and 
take  him  to  a  hospital  in  Shanghai,  so  he  is  holding  the 
ship  to  see  if  he  can't  make  the  arrangement. 

I  don't  blame  the  man  for  getting  delirium  tremens  in 
Che  Foo.     After  a  careful  inspection  of  the  place  I  don't 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  273 

see  what  else  he  could  get,  and  I  am  not  so  sure  that  he 
would  have  to  drhik  a  great  deal  of  liquor  to  get  it,  either. 
Che  Foo  is  built  on  high  hills  looking  out  to  sea.  Geo- 
graphically, it  is  beautifully  located.  The  view  of  the 
sea  is  superb,  but  we  must  have  more  than  a  view  of  the 
sea  in  this  world,  to  be  happy,  and  Che  Foo  is  as  lone- 
some as  a  Sullivan  County  farm.  It  is  not  so  always,  I 
understand,  for  in  the  Summer  it  is  something  of  a  resort 
for  Shanghai  people.  There  is  surf  bathing  and  all  that 
in  the  Summer,  but  the  rest  of  the  year — my  conscience, 
the  lonesomeness  of  it !  Nothing  but  missionaries  and 
Chinamen  to  associate  with !  The  missionaries  are  all 
of  the  kind  that  wear  pigtails  and  Chinese  clothes,  and  I 
have  gotten  so  I  just  hate  the  sight  of  them.  I  think  the 
Chinese  do,  too. 

There  is  nothing  more  to  tell  you  of  the  Chinese  in  Che 
Foo.  They  are  just  like  the  Peking  and  the  Tien  Tsin 
Chinese.  Che  Foo  is  a  center  for  the  manufacture  of  a 
heavy  silk.  I  thought  at  first  that  I  would  buy  a  few  rolls 
of  it,  but  when  I  saw  the  quality  and  heard  the  price  I 
changed  my  mind.  It  is  the  heavy,  linen-colored  stuff 
that  men's  clothes  are  made  of.  It  makes  clothes  good 
enough  to  wear  here  in  the  East,  but  I  ain  afraid  that  if  I 
appeared  on  Broadway  with  a  suit  of  it  I  would  create  a 
sensation.     That  was  the  principal  reason  I  did  not  buy. 

Well,  the  Captain  has  just  come  aboard  without  his 
drunken  friend  and  he  says  that  we  will  start.  I'll  wave 
a  da-da  to  Che  Foo  and  for  the  last  time,  I  hope,  shake 
ofif  the  dust  of  North  China.  I  will  not  write  you  again, 
until  I  get  to  Shanghai.  It  is  useless,  for  it  is  simply 
going  over  the  same  ground,  or  the  same  water  rather, 
that  I  have  already  traveled  and  written  you  fully  about. 
We  are  due  in  Shanghai  on  the  1 5th. 

The    Astor    House,    Shanghai,    March    16,    1901. 

Being  the  twenty-sixth  day,  first  moon,  27th  year 

H.  I.  M.  Kuang  Hsu. 

I  got  back  to  Shanghai  last  night  after  another  one  of 

those  tempestuous  voyages  on  the  China  Sea.     The  old 

Tung  Chow  rocked  like  a  cradle  all  the  way,  but  luckily 

we  didn't  have  the  head  winds  we  had  going  up,  so  we 


274  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

made  better  headway.  I  have  my  old  room  in  the 
Astor  House,  and  shall  probably  be  here  for  a  week, 
at  least,  waiting  for  a  steamer  to  take  me  to  Hong  Kong. 
Shanghai  is  the  same  as  it  was  before,  but  it  is  not  new 
to  me  now,  so  things  don't  impress  me  as  they  did  on  my 
previous  visit.  J.  has  the  room  next  to  mine.  He 
is  a  good  traveling  companion.  He  is  going  home  across 
the  Pacific  and  is  going  to  stay  here  until  April  ist,  to 
wind  up  some  business  matters. 

The  Congers  got  in  this  morning.  They  left  Peking 
after  I  did,  and  had  a  better  trip  down.  They  are  going 
home,  too,  for  a  six-months'  vacation,  and  they  are  very 
happy  over  it.  Everybody  in  Shanghai  seems  to  think 
that  Mr.  Conger  has  been  recalled.  He  has  not  been, 
and  as  I  am  familiar  with  all  the  facts  in  the  case,  I  told 
the  editor  of  The  Shanghai  Mercury,  who  interviewed 
me  this  morning,  and  to-night  The  Mercury  prints  an 
interview  with  me  half  a  column  long. 

I  took  a  drive  this  afternoon  out  the  Bubbling  Well 
Road  that  I  have  already  told  you  about.  J.  pro- 
vided the  carriage.  After  that  I  went  out  to  buy 
a  trunk ;  then  I  went  to  see  F.,  the  reformed  mis- 
sionary who  is  our  man  here,  and  paid  him  $450.  That 
completes  the  record  of  the  day.  I  sat  around  the  hotel 
the  rest  of  the  day,  looking  glum  and  wishing  that  a  boat 
for  Hong  Kong  would  come  along,  but  none  came,  and 
none  is  advertised  as  due  for  some  days,  so  I'll  simply 
have  to  possess  my  soul  in  patience.  The  sinking  of  the 
Pacific  Mail  ship  Rio  Janeiro  leaves  the  mail  service  from 
Shanghai  short  one  boat  and  the  next  mail  won't  be  until 
April.  One  of  the  Empress  boats  leaves  Hong  Kong 
April  3,  so  I  will  save  up  my  letters  and  mail  them  aboard 
of  her  when  I  get  to  Hong  Kong.  She  goes  to  Van- 
couver and  will  beat  the  Coptic,  which  leaves  April  i. 

The  Astor  House,  Shanghai,  March  19,  1901,  twen- 
ty-ninth day,  first  moon,  27th  year  H.  I.  M.  Kuang 
Hsu. 
Still  in  Shanghai  and  no  chance  now  of  getting  away, 
I  fear,  until  the  24th  or  25th.     The  French  mail  left  for 
Hong  Kong  to-day,  but  with  absolutely  not  an  inch  of 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  275 

space  to  spare  on  her  and  I  couldn't  go,  I've  seen  every- 
thing there  is  in  Shanghai  to  see,  and  I  can  tell  you  it  is 
mighty  dull  waiting  around  with  little  of  anything  to  do. 

I  have  been  putting  in  some  of  my  time  here,  talking 
with  the  newspaper  proprietors  about  the  possibility  of 
selling  them  the  Lafifan  Bureau  service,  and  I  am  very 
much  encouraged  by  the  outlook.  They  want  to  get  it, 
but  the  cable  tolls  are  too  high,  so  it  is  hard  to  see  how 
they  can  afford  it.  It  will  cost  them  about  $ioo  a  day, 
gold,  and  in  the  East  that  is  a  good  deal  of  money  to  pay 
for  news,  where  the  people  who  read  your  papers  can  be 
counted  by  hundreds  rather  than  thousands.  Shanghai 
has  a  foreign  population  of  about  7,000  and  the  English 
papers  have  to  depend  on  that  number  as  the  limit  of  their 
possible  subscribers.  I  don't  know  whether  I'll  be  able 
to  sell  the  service  or  not,  but  I  am  going  to  do  the  best  I 
can. 

There  is  still  nothing  new  to  tell  you,  so  I'll  stop  writ- 
ing and  say  good-bye  again  for  a  few  days. 

The  Astor  House,  Shanghai,  March  22,  1901,  sec- 
ond day,  second  moon,  27th  year  H.  I.  M.  Kuang 
Hsu. 

This  is  fine  paper  the  Astor  House  gives  us  to  write 
on,  isn't  it?  It  makes  me  weary  every  time  I  pick  up 
a  pen.  They  are  just  as  stingy  about  it,  too,  as  it  is 
possible  to  be.  When  you  ask  at  the  desk  for  paper  and 
envelopes  they  give  you  one  sheet  and  one  envelope,  and 
they  seem  to  do  that  more  or  less  grudgingly.  I  have 
only  one  yellow  pad  left  and  I'll  need  that  on  shipboard, 
so  I  stick  to  this  stuff,  stingy  as  the  hotel  is. 

Yesterday  J.  and  I  went  out  to  the  Nang  Yang 
College  and  had  tiffin  with  F.,  who  is  the  Presi- 
dent, and  for  the  first  time  I  saw  the  Chinese  boys  playing 
foreign  games.  There  was  an  American  baseball  game 
going  on,  and  an  English  cricket  game,  and  you  would  be 
surprised  to  see  how  well  the  young  Chinamen  played. 
Really,  they  did  splendidly — I  mean,  of  course,  for  China- 
men. They  didn't  compare  with  American  boys  of  the 
same  age,  but  they  did  mighty  well,  and  with  practice  I 
have  no  doubt  they  would   very   soon  become   expert. 


276  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

Their  skirts  were  in  the  way  and  their  shoes  didn't  permit 
them  to  run  anything  Hke  as  fast  as  an  American  boy 
could  run.  Nevertheless,  they  got  over  the  ground 
somehow.  They  were  a  very  intelligent-looking  lot  of 
boys,  and  Ferguson,  who,  of  course,  knew  them  all  per- 
sonally, said  that  they  were  fully  up  to  the  average  in 
intelligence  with  foreign  boys  of  their  own  age.  Fergu- 
son has  had  an  addition  to  his  family  since  I  was  out 
before.  It  was  the  ninth.  You  see,  while  he  is  a  re- 
formed missionary,  he  hasn't  altogether  gotten  out  of  the 
missionary  habits,  which  bring  $ioo  a  year  more  salary 
for  every  baby  in  the  family.  He  has  sent  his  elder  chil- 
dren to  the  United  States  to  be  educated,  and  he  is  keep- 
ing six  or  seven  of  the  younger  ones  out  here  in  Shanghai. 

After  tiffin  to-day  I  went  to  see  Sheng  and  I  had 
another  talk  with  him.  Sheng  again  impressed  me  as 
being  one  of  the  smartest,  shrewdest  Chinamen  I  have 
ever  met.  We  talked  about  pretty  nearly  everything. 
He  was  anxious  to  hear  all  about  the  condition  of  things 
in  North  China  and  I  had  to  tell  him.  It  was  really  a 
case  of  the  interviewer  being  interviewed,  but  I  enjoyed 
it  and  he  seemed  to.  I  got  some  quite  valuable  stuff 
from  him  about  an  American  concession  that  I  shall  use 
when  I  get  home. 

Well,  good-bye  again  for  a  few  days.  I  sail,  I  think, 
on  the  25th,  in  the  English  mail  steamship  Plassy,  for 
Hong  Kong. 

The  Astor  House,  Shanghai,  March  25,  1901. 
Fifth  day,  fifth  moon,  27th  year  H.  I.  M.  Kuang 
Hsu. 

Just  a  word  before  I  go  on  board  the  Plassy.  She 
starts  from  here  at  i  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  I  am 
going  on  board  at  5  this  afternoon.  I  have  been  packing 
to-day,  and  going  around  saying  good-bye  to  the 
Shanghai  folks  who  have  been  kind  to  me.  I  had 
F.  and  some  of  his  professors  at  tiffin  with  me 
at  the  club  to-day,  went  around  and  saw  some  of  the 
newspaper  folk  again,  and  had  another  ride  with  J., 
finished  up  what  little  business  I  had  here,  paid  my  hotel 
bill,  and  now  I'm  all  ready  to  go  on  board  the  launch  that 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  277 

takes  the  Plassy's  passengers  down  to  Woo  Sung,  where 
the  ship  is  lying.  I  think  that  winds  up  alfairs  in 
Shanghai  for  me,  and  I  am  off  again  on  my  homeward 
journey.  The  Plassy  is  due  in  Hong  Kong  on  the  28th, 
and  I'll  write  you  again  from  there. 

March  26,  1901.     On  Board  the  Steamship  Plassy, 
China  Sea. 

I  am  out  of  China,  now,  and  I'll  drop  the  Chinese 
calendar.  I  trust  the  moons  won't  bother  me  any  more 
for  some  time  to  come,  at  any  rate.  Unlike  Chinese 
ships,  the  Plassy  got  off  on  time.  I  was  in  bed  and  sound 
asleep,  and  didn't  get  up  to  see  it.  The  Plassy  is  a  pretty 
fine  boat.  This  is  her  first  trip  out  to  the  East.  She  has 
been  afloat  only  a  year.  She  was  built  to  use  as  a  troop 
ship  in  an  emergency,  and  for  that  reason  she  is  big  and 
roomy. 

I  was  struck  by  one  thing  at  the  Peninsular  and 
Oriental  jetty  where  I  got  aboard  the  tender.  There  was 
a  big  crowd  there  to  see  the  passengers  homeward  bound, 
and  what  struck  me  was  the  greeting.     It  was — 

"  Why,  hello,  are  you  going  home  ?  " 

"  Yes,  I'm  going  home — thank  God !     Are  you  going/ 
home,  too? " 

"  No,  damn  it." 

If  I  heard  that  once,  I  heard  it  fifty  times,  I  think. 
This  morning  when  I  went  in  to  breakfast  the  chief 
steward,  who  assigned  me  to  a  seat,  excused  himself  for 
putting  me  at  a  side  table  with  the  other  Hong  Kong 
'passengers  by  saying,  "  You  see,  sir,  we  wants  to  keep 
all  the  'ome  people  at  the  tables  where  they  can  stay,  and 
you  are  only  going  to  'Ong  Kong,  sir." 

There  is  one  thing  about  the  P.  and  O.  line  that  is  a 
great  nuisance.  It  is  the  custom  of  dressing  for  dinner. 
All  the  men  have  to  put  on  dress  suits.  It  is  a  fad  that 
has  to  be  complied  with.  The  man  who  doesn't  comply 
with  it  is  an  object  of  curiosity,  and,  much  as  I  disliked 
it,  I  disliked  becoming  an  object  of  curiosity  much  worse, 
so  I  put  on  dress  clothes.  It  was  lucky  I  did,  for  there 
wasn't  a  man  at  the  table  who  didn't  wear  the  same,  and  I 
would  have  been  a  sight  if  I  hadn't.     It  was  pretty  cool 


278  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

on  board,  too,  and  some  of  the  people  wore  light  over- 
coats outside  the  dress  suits.  Funny  custom,  isn't  it, 
when  you  must  wear  a  dress  suit  even  if  you  have  to  wear 
your  overcoat  to  dinner  to  keep  warm  ?  I  nearly  froze  to 
death,  myself.  The  Plassy  is  due  to  arrive  in  Hong 
Kong  day  after  to-morrow. 

Hong  Kong  Hotel,  March  28,  1901. 

I  have  begun  to  see  new  things  again  at  last,  and  from 
now  on  I  think  it  very  likely  I  shall  have  more  to  write 
about  that  will  interest  you.  The  Plassy  arrived  off 
Hong  Kong  harbor  at  i  o'clock  to-day,  and  we  sailed  into 
what  I  think  is  one  of  the  prettiest  harbors  that  I  have 
ever  seen.  Hong  Kong  is  an  island,  pretty  well  sur- 
rounded by  other  islands,  all  of  which  are  small  moun- 
tains rising  right  up  out  of  the  water  to  a  height  of  from 
500  to  1,000  feet.  They  are  close  together  and  the  pas- 
sages between  them,  consequently,  are  narrow.  The 
shigs  go  into  the  harbor  between  chains  of  these  mountain 
islands.  There  must  be  six  or  seven  miles  of  them  be- 
fore you  reach  the  main  island,  on  which  the  city  of 
Victoria,  or  Hong  Kong,  is  built.  The  name  of  the 
island  is  Hong  Kong  and  that  of  the  city  Victoria, 
though  very  few  people  call  it  that.  It  is  just  Hong 
Kong  to  everybody. 

Hong  Kong  is  built  on  the  side  of  a  hill.  The  top  of 
the  hill  is  1,800  feet  above  the  level,  and  on  muggy  days 
like  to-day  the  clouds  are  away  below  "  the  Peak."  Dur- 
ing the  rainy  season,  they  tell  me,  for  two  months  you 
can't  see  the  Peak  at  all.  The  whole  side  of  the  hill  is 
dotted  with  houses.  The  wealthy  people  live  nearest  the 
top,  and  some  of  their  houses  are  truly  mansions.  It  is  a 
fine  thing,  of  course,  to  live  up  high,  and  the  view  is 
superb,  but  it  has  its  disadvantages.  The  air  up  there  is 
so  damp,  the  people  say,  that  every  house  has  to  have  a 
drying  room  and  every  stitch  of  clothing,  when  not  in 
use,  has  to  be  hung  in  the  drying  room  in  order  that 
it  may  be  dry  enough  to  put  on  the  next  time  it  is 
needed. 

The  harbor  itself  was  full  of  ships  when  we  came  in 
to-day.    Among  others  there  were  our  own  great  battle- 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  270 

ships,  the  Oregoii  and  the  Kentucky.  The  Kentucky  is 
one  of  our  new  ships,  and  we  think  she  is  about  the  finest 
thing  in  the  warship  Hne  that  floats.  She  has  created 
something  of  a  sensation  here.  I  was  very  much  amused, 
at  two  EngHsh  naval  officers  who  were  passengers  on  the 
Flossy.  They  sat  opposite  me  at  the  table  and  three  or 
four  times  they  got  to  talking  about  warships  and  dis- 
cussed the  Kentucky.  Neither  of  them  had  seen  her,  but 
they  had  read  about  her,  and  it  was  their  opinion  that  she 
wasn't  much  of  a  ship.  Well,  when  the  Plassy  came  into 
port  they  were  by  the  rail  and  they  took  good  looks  at  the 
Kentucky  with  their  glasses. 

"  By  Jove !  "  said  one,  "  not  a  bad-looking  craft,  is 
she?" 

"  Not  half  bad,"  assented  the  other. 

They  were  silent  a  moment,  and  then  they  began  to 
make  comparisons  with  the  Centurion,  an  English  battle- 
ship which  was  lying  near  by.  The  Kentucky  showed  at 
least  twice  as  many  guns  as  the  Englishman.  The  wind- 
up  of  it  was  that  the  Englishmen  confessed  to  each  other 
that  "Really,  old  chap,  our  boats  ought  to  carry  more 
guns,"  and  "  Don't  cha  know,  she  could  make  a  very 
nawsty  fight."  They  agreed  then  and  there  to  go  aboard 
and  have  a  closer  look  at  the  Kentucky. 

Hong  Kong  harbor  is  filled  chock  full  of  sampans.  I 
have  already  told  you  about  these  small  boats.  In  China 
people  are  born  on  them,  live  all  their  lives  on  them  and 
die  on  them.  One  small  one  that  came  alongside  before 
we  were  tied  up  to-day  had  as  occupants  a  man,  two 
women,  six  children,  and  two  dogs.  The  oldest  child  was 
about  seven  and  the  others  were  graded  in  both  age  and 
size,  the  smallest,  a  babe  that  I  should  take  to  be  not  more 
than  a  month  old,  was  slung  in  a  sling  across  the  back 
of  one  of  the  women.  The  other  children  all  had  ropes 
tied  about  their  waists  and  the  women  held  the  ends  of 
the  ropes.  Now  and  then  a  child  would  fall  overboard, 
an  incident  that  hardly  disturbed  the  equanimity  of  the 
other  occupants  of  the  boat.  The  woman  who  held  the 
end  of  the  particular  rope  attached  to  that  child's  waist 
would  simply  haul  in  the  line  and  the  squawking  young- 
ster,  spluttering  water,   would  be   hauled  back   aboard 


280  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

and  spanked.  Think  of  being  bom  on  a  little  boat  and 
spending  your  life  there !  These  people  do  it,  as  I  said 
before,  and  they  are  happy  there,  too,  I  suppose,  because 
they  don't  know  anything  better. 

But  besides  the  hundreds  of  sampans,  the  harbor  of 
Hong  Kong  has  a  great  lot  of  steam  lavmches.  The  peo- 
ple here  say  that  there  are  more  steam  launches  in  the 
harbor  than  in  any  other  harbor  in  the  world.  Whether 
that  is  true  or  not  I  do  not  know,  but  there  certainly  are 
a  great  many  of  them.  The  Hong  Kong  Hotel,  where  I 
am  stopping,  has  one  that  meets  every  steamer.  I  came 
ashore  on  her  to-day.  When  I  walked  up  to  the  desk  to 
register  the  clerk  looked  at  me  without  a  quiver  and 
said,  "Will  you  have  an  $8,  a  $io,  or  a  $12  room?" 
Well,  it  nearly  took  my  breath  away.  The  gall  of  a 
Hong  Kong  hotel  charging  $8,  $10,  and  $12  a  day! 
I  told  him  I'd  take  a  $10  room,  and  then  I  went  up 
to  look  at  it.  It  was  just  a  fair  average  $4-a-day 
room. 

I  made  some  inquiries  of  casual  acquaintances  after 
that.  They  all  damned  the  Americans.  They  said  the 
Americans  had  spoiled  Hong  Kong,  as  they  spoil  every 
place  they  go.  They  were  made  of  money  and  they  spent 
it  like  water,  paying  anything  that  was  asked  and  never 
growling.  Before  the  Americans  took  the  Philippines, 
they  said,  the  Hong  Kong  Hotel  was  glad  to  get  $3  a  day, 
and  now  they  considered  that  they  were  doing  a  great 
favor  to  let  a  room  for  as  little  as  $10  a  day.  You  see, 
everybody  from  the  States  going  to  and  from  Manila  has 
to  stop  at  Hong  Kong  and  wait  for  a  Manila  boat,  so  the 
place  is  always  crowded  with  Americans  who  have  money 
to  burn  and  who  burn  it.  I  didn't  have  much  chance  to 
go  around  the  city  to-day,  so  I  can't  tell  you  any  more  at 
present.     I'll  do  that  in  another  letter. 

Hong  Kong  Hotel,  Hong  Kong,  March  30,  1901. 
I  am  beginning  to  think  that  I  have  a  pretty  large 
circle  of  acquaintance  in  this  world  of  ours.  In  all  my 
travels  I  have  never  yet  found  a  place  where  I  didn't  run 
across  somebody  I  knew.  Hong  Kong  is  no  exception. 
I  hadn't  been  here  six  hours  when  I  heard  a  familiar 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  281 

voice  bawl  out,  "  Well,  for  the  Lord's  sake,  Chamberlin, 
where  did  you  come  from  ?  Gosh !  last  time  I  saw  you 
was  in  Tampa  Bay,  Florida."  And  another  voice  said, 
"  Well,  I'll  be  hornswoggled.  Last  time  I  saw  you  was 
in  Santiago,  Cuba.     How  are  you,  anyway  ?  " 

The  first  man  was  Paymaster  P.,  of  the  Irish  bat- 
tleship O' Regan,  as  she  is  known  in  the  navy,  and 
the  other  was  Ensign  M.,  of  the  Concord.  We  three 
stood  there  talking  when  along  came  Dr.  R.  of  New 
York,  a  dentist  whom  I  knew  there,  and  we  had  quite  a 
jubilation.  Strange  how  one  runs  across  people  that 
way,  isn't  it?  Those  three  hadn't  the  remotest  idea  that 
I  was  in  this  part  of  the  world,  and  I  hadn't  the  remotest 
idea  that  they  were.  They  have  been  here  some  time 
and  know  Hong  Kong  pretty  well,  and  to-day  I  have 
been  around  with  them,  seeing  sights. 

There  are  a  great  many  sights  in  Hong  Kong  to  see. 
First  of  all  there  are  the  shops.  Canton,  the  biggest  city 
in  China,  is  up  the  river  ninety-five  miles,  and  it  is  the 
headquarters  of  the  gold  and  silver  manufacturers  of 
China.  Half  the  shops  on  the  Queen's  Road,  which  is 
the  principal  street  in  Hong  Kong,  are  devoted  to  the  sale 
of  gold  and  silver  at  prices  that  make  your  mouth  water. 
Every  conceivable  thing  is  made  from  the  metals  and 
sold  by  weight.  When  you  go  into  a  shop  to  buy,  the 
keeper  takes  down  what  you  want  and  puts  it  in  a  pair  of 
scales.  Then  he  charges  you  the  value  of  the  metal  and 
lo  per  cent,  added  for  the  labor.  If  I  had  money  I  think 
I'd  just  stock  up  with  silverware  and  gold  ware  to  last  a 
lifetime.  Unfortunately  I  haven't  money,  so  my  busi- 
ness is  just  a  "  look-see  "  one. 

I  laid  in  some  white  clothes  to-day,  to  wear  in  India. 
They  were  of  cotton  duck  and  cost  $4.50  a  suit.  That 
is  $2.25  of  our  money.  Couldn't  complain  of  that,  could 
I  ?  There  are  any  number  of  Japanese  curio  stores,  too, 
and  the  things  in  them  are  as  cheap  as  they  can  be  bought 
in  Japan.  This  afternoon  I  took  a  trip  up  to  the  Peak. 
There  is  a  railroad  running  up  there.  The  cars  are 
drawn  by  cable.  The  road  is  just  about  as  steep  as  the 
switchback  in  America.  You  remember  the  trip  we 
made  to  Mauch  Chunk  and  Glen  Onoka.     I  thought  of 


282  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

that  to-day  as  I  went  up  the  Peak  road  here.  The  view 
from  the  Peak  here  is  certainly  magnificent.  The  day 
was  clear  and  I  could  see  miles  in  every  direction.  It  got 
cloudy  and  began  to  rain  while  I  was  up  there,  so  that  the 
trip  was  not  as  enjoyable  as  it  might  have  been. 

I  gathered  in  a  few  little  souvenirs  to-day,  but  I  won't 
tell  you  about  them  here.  I'll  save  that  till  I  get  home, 
which  I  think  now  will  be  about  the  first  or  second  week 
in  May.  I  had  intended  going  from  here  to  Calcutta  by 
boat,  but  the  first  boat  sails  on  April  15,  and  I  can't  waste 
all  that  time,  so  to-day  I  bought  a  ticket  to  Singapore  on 
the  German  mail  boat  Stuttgart,  of  the  North  German 
Lloyd  line.  She  is  due  to  leave  here  next  Wednesday. 
That's  the  best  I  can  do.  I  can  get  a  boat  every  few  days 
from  Singapore  to  Calcutta. 

Hong  Kong  Hotel,  April  i,  1901. 

First  I  thought  I  would  just  write  a  big  "  April  fool," 
on  this  sheet  of  paper  and  let  it  go  at  that,  but  then  I 
remembered  that  I  did  not  write  to  you  yesterday  and 
thought  better  of  it.  Good  of  me,  wasn't  it?  I  have 
been  moseying  around  the  shops  again  and  gathering  in 
a  few  little  trinkets — nothing  of  any  value  and  nothing 
worth  talking  about,  but  all  Chinese-y  as  Chinese  can  be 
and  hence  of  more  or  less  value  as  little  souvenirs.  The 
American  colony  here  has  been  overjoyed  to-day  by  a 
report  from  Manila  that  Aguinaldo  has  been  captured. 
According  to  the  story,  General  Funston  got  him  with  the 
aid  of  a  company  of  the  Macabebes.  I  hope  it  is  true, 
for  that  would  have  a  very  great  moral  effect  upon  the 
Philippine  question  in  the  United  States,  and  will  go 
a  long  way  toward  winding  up  the  trouble  in  the 
islands. 

Talking  with  some  Hong  Kong  people  this  afternoon 
about  the  damage  that  Americans  had  done  to  the  town, 
they  limited  their  accusations  solely  to  the  question  of  the 
cost  of  living,  and  then  went  on  and  told  how  the  Amer- 
icans had  made  the  place.  Before  the  battle  in  Manila 
Bay,  they  said.  Hong  Kong  was  a  dead-and-alive  place. 
There  was  little  money  here.  Labor  was  cheap.  Every- 
thing was   cheap,   and  business   was   dull.      Since  the 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  283 

American  occupation  of  the  Philippines,  on  the  other 
hand,  business  has  been  booming.  There  is  never  a  time 
when  there  are  not  four  or  five  men-of-war  in  the  harbor 
and  300  or  400  Americans,  either  waiting  to  go  to  Manila 
or  returning  from  there,  all  of  them  spendthrifts  and 
leaving  behind  them  wherever  they  go  a  trail  of  money. 
On  the  whole,  these  Hong  Kong  people  who  complained 
that  the  Americans  had  spoiled  Hong  Kong  couldn't  help 
expressing  the  hope  that  they  would  keep  on  and  spoil  it 
some  more. 

The  Chinese  I  have  seen  down  here  are  a  different 
class  of  people  from  those  in  the  North.  Most  of  them 
are  opium-smokers.  They  are  less  polite  than  in  the 
North,  and  they  are  never  intelligent,  I  think.  Down 
here  they  don't  know  anything  about  the  troubles  in  the 
North,  and  they  are  indifferent  to  them.  They  haven't 
any  patriotism,  and  to  them  China  seems  to  be  Canton 
only.  The  fact  that  the  foreigners  are  occupying  Peking 
and  have  possession  of  the  ancestral  halls  and  the  tombs 
of  their  Emperors  is  no  matter  to  them,  and  they  don't 
concern  themselves  about  it.  I  talked  with  a  number  of 
Chinamen  about  it  to-day,  and  they  didn't  take  the  least 
interest  in  the  matter. 

One  thing  that  strikes  me  about  Hong  Kong  is  the  ad- 
ministration of  justice  to  the  Chinese.  It  is  the  first  place 
in  China  that  I  have  visited  where  the  Chinaman  has  a 
fair  show.  Here  he  gets  justice  all  the  time.  If  a  white 
man  hits  him  the  white  man  is  arrested  and  fined.  If  he 
hits  a  white  man  he  is  arrested  and  fined.  Of  course  he 
hasn't  all  the  privileges  that  a  white  man  has,  but  he  has 
enough.  All  the  servants  here  are  Chinese  boys.  The 
law  looks  after  them,  too.  They  go  to  work  for  the  for- 
eigners, and  the  law  requires  that  they  obey  their  masters 
in  everything  pertaining  to  their  work.  For  instance,  if  a 
house-boy  refuses  to  do  any  piece  of  work  that  his  master 
orders  him  to  do,  his  master  turns  him  over  to  the  police. 
He  is  brought  up  before  the  Judge  the  next  morning,  and 
if  the  Judge  decides  that  the  work  demanded  was  proper 
house-boy  work,  he  is  sent  to  jail  for  a  week  or  fined.  If 
a  servant  leaves  your  employ  without  proper  notice,  he  is 
followed  up  by  the  police  and  is  arrested  and  fined.    Here 


a84  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

is  a  clipping  I  got  from  one  of  the  Hong  Kong  papers 
this  morning : 

Before  Mr.  Kemp, 
solicitor  and  his  servant. 
F.  X.  d'Almada  e  Castro,  a  solicitor,  at  present  practising  with 
Messrs.  Wilkinson  and  Grist,  summoned  his  servant  A.  Yeng  for 
leaving  his  employ  without  giving  proper  notice.  Prosecutor 
stated  that  the  defendant  disappeared  from  the  house  and  took 
up  a  position  with  Mr.  H.  E.  Noronha,  of  Balls  Court  East,  Bon- 
ham  Road.  He  said  he  was  going  to  Macao  for  a  few  days  and 
would  get  a  substitute.  He  provided  a  substitute  who  broke 
some  porcelain  cups  and  saucers.  His  Worship  fined  the  accus- 
tomed $5  or  14  days. 

I  wonder  if  laws  like  these  wouldn't  go  a  great  way  to- 
ward   settling   the   servant-girl    question    in    America, 

Well,  the  grist  for  the  day  is  over.  I  have  to 
go  to  the  bank,  now,  and  get  some  money  to  pay 
my  hotel  bill,  and  to  pay  for  my  steamship  ticket,  for 
which  I  signed  a  "  chit."  The  steamship  company  is  a 
robber  organization,  almost  as  bad  as  the  hotel.  It 
charges  $104  for  a  ticket  to  Singapore,  and  it  is  only  a 
five-day  trip. 

Hong  Kong  Hotel,  April  2,  1901, 
This  will  be  my  last  letter  from  Hong  Kong,  and  it 
will  be  a  short  one.  The  Stuttgart  goes  to-morrow  at 
noon,  and  I'll  have  to  be  on  board  in  the  morning,  so 
there  will  be  no  time  to  write.  My  next  letters  will  be 
mailed  at  Singapore,  down  near  the  equator,  and  will  go 
to  you  by  way  of  London,  preceding  me  probably  three 
or  four  steamers. 

There  isn't  much  left  to  tell  you  about  Hong  Kong. 
I  went  through  the  Chinese  section  of  the  city  to-day, 
and  it  was  just  about  like  all  Chinese  cities,  except  that 
the  houses  were  two  stories  high.  Up  North,  you  will 
remember,  they  have  no  two-story  houses.  A  man 
built  one  there  once,  and  the  Dowager,  looking  out 
of  her  window  in  the  palace  in  the  Forbidden  City,  one 
morning,  saw  the  top  of  it.  She  sent  her  messengers  out 
to  find  out  what  it  was.  When  she  heard,  she  sent  for 
the  owner,  and  when  he  was  brought  in  she  berated  him 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  285 

for  daring  to  build  a  house  higher  than  the  wall  of  her 
city.  Then  she  fined  him  $100,000,  which  he  couldn't 
pay,  so  she  took  the  house  and  gave  it  to  the  Duke  Lan, 
her  nephew.  The  Duke  is  one  of  the  fellows  who  was 
banished  at  the  demand  of  the  powers,  and  the  house,  at 
the  time  of  the  relief  of  Peking,  was  taken  possession  of 
by  the  Rev.  Dr.  T.,  of  the  Congregational  mis- 
sionaries. However,  that  is  ancient  history  now,  isn't 
it?  I  started  in  to  say  that  the  Chinese  houses  in  the 
Chinese  section  of  the  city  of  Hong  Kong  are  two  stories 
high.  Not  only  that,  but  they  are  built  of  brick  and  have 
many  rooms,  like  foreign  houses,  which  goes  to  show 
that  the  Chinaman  will  adopt  foreign  ways  if  he  has  the 
proper  environment. 

I  have  had  more  rows  since  I  came  to  Hong  Kong  over 
the  subject  of  Li  Hung  Chang  than  I  have  had  over  all 
subjects  put  together  since  I  came  to  China.  I  am  an 
admirer  of  the  Chinese  statesman,  I  am  free  to  say,  and 
all  the  Englishmen  I  have  met  hate  him  worse  than  poison. 
They  hate  him  so  much  that  they  can't  help  talking  about 
him,  and  when  they  blackguard  him  in  my  presence,  I 
naturally  take  up  the  controversy.  Being  of  a  somewhat 
positive  nature,  I  don't  mince  words,  and  I  get  the  Eng- 
lishmen so  mad  that  they  are  ready  to  fight.  However,  I 
haven't  had  any  fights  yet,  and  I  guess  now  I  won't  have 
any.      I  may  have  changed  a  few  minds,  however. 

I  went  over  to  Kow  Loon  last  night  and  dined  with 
Dr.  R.  and  two  men  with  whom  he  lives.  Kow 
Loon  is  across  the  harbor  from  Hong  Kong.  It  is  some- 
thing like  Jersey  City  and  New  York.  You  go  on  a  ferry. 
Nothing  worthy  of  mention  happened.  That  is  a  mistake. 
I  got  a  dinner  composed  of  real  food,  and  escaped  for 
one  meal  the  abominable  chow  of  this  hotel,  absolutely 
the  worst,  I  think,  that  I  have  had  since  I  left  America. 
1  am  going  to  tell  the  proprietor  so  when  I  pay  my  bill  in 
the  morning.  It  won't  do  any  good,  but  there  will  be  a 
certain  amount  of  satisfaction  in  saying  it,  anyway.  In 
looking  over  the  register  to-day,  I  found  that  somebody 
had  written  in  it  under  his  name,  "  This  is  the  worst 
hotel  I  have  ever  seen,"  and  I  felt  like  putting  under  that 
"  Those  are  my  sentiments,  too." 


286  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

They  have  a  strange  sort  of  a  system  here.  The  pro- 
prietor of  the  hotel  doesn't  feed  you.  He  farms  the  job 
out  to  a  Chinaman.  He  pays  him  about  a  dollar  (Mexi- 
can) a  day,  I  suppose,  and  the  Chinaman  has  to  feed  you 
and  make  a  proht  out  of  it,  too.  He  makes  a  profit  all 
right,  too.  Even  in  Peking  the  food  was  better,  and  that 
is  saying  a  good  deal. 

Well,  I'll  stop  this  chatter  and  say  good-night. 

On  Board  the  Stuttgart,  in  the  China  Sea, 

April  3,  1901. 

Afloat  again  and  pointing  homeward.  I  sailed  away 
from  Hong  Kong  a  little  after  noon  to-day,  after  a  most 
harrowing  half-hour,  one  of  the  kind  that  make  you  ques- 
tion whether  you  are  afoot  or  on  horseback.  Three  mail 
steamers  were  booked  to  leave  Hong  Kong  at  the  same 
hour,  noon,  and  altogether  they  took  ninety  people  with 
them.  The  people  were  all  stopping  at  the  Hong  Kong 
Hotel,  and,  of  course,  that  institution  couldn't  manage 
things,  and,  at  the  last  minute,  there  was  an  awful  mix-up 
with  the  baggage. 

A  United  States  army  officer,  his  wife,  and  myself  were 
the  only  passengers  for  the  Stuttgart,  and  while  our  bag- 
gage was  ready  last  night,  of  course  the  hotel  idiots  left 
it  until  the  last  moment,  when  the  steam  launch  was  ready 
to  start,  and  it  was  found  that  there  was  no  room  on  her. 
The  Stuttgart  was  at  Kow  Loon.  Our  baggage  was 
loaded  aboard  a  sampan,  and  the  woman  who  ran  it  and 
all  her  family  started  pulling  for  dear  life  for  the  other 
side  of  the  harbor,  while  the  army  officer  and  his  wife  and 
I  made  a  rush  for  the  ferry.  We  got  over  there,  but  the 
baggage,  where  was  it?  It  certainly  did  not  seem  to  be 
anywhere.  Now  came  time  for  the  boat  to  start,  and  no 
hide  or  hair  of  the  baggage!  The  blessed  harbor  was 
full  of  sampans,  and  you  couldn't  pick  out  the  right  one 
to  save  yourself.  Twelve-fifteen  came  and  went.  The 
army  officer's  wife  had  hysterics,  the  army  officer  cursed, 
and  I  swore  that  if  it  ever  came  in  my  power  to  ruin  the 
Hong  Kong  hotel  I'd  do  it.  Twelve-twenty  and  twelve- 
twenty-five  came,  and  still  no  baggage.  The  captain  of 
the  ship  was  consulted.     He  said  the  Stuttgart  would 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  287 

have  to  start  the  moment  the  mails  were  aboard.  Thank' 
the  Lord,  they  hadn't  come  yet.  Twelve-thirty,  and  still 
no  baggage,  but  through  the  glasses,  looking  to  the  Hong 
Kong  side  of  the  river,  a  little  white  launch  could  be  seen, 
putting  out  from  the  shore.  It  was  the  mail  launch,  and 
we  were  lost. 

That  is  to  say,  we  thought  we  were.  It  was  about  four 
minutes  later  when  the  army  officer's  wife  recovered  from 
her  hysterics  sufficiently  to  say  that  she  identified  a  hat- 
box  on  an  approaching  sampan.  It  was  still  300  yards 
oflF,  and  the  mail  launch  was  running  like  the  wind.  Now, 
I  am  not  going  to  harrow  your  soul  with  the  details  of 
the  next  seven  minutes,  during  which  the  sampan  came 
creeping  along,  and  after  her  came  the  mail  boat,  gaining 
foot  by  foot  every  instant.  You  can  imagine  the  scene. 
All  the  passengers  on  the  Stuttgart  were  aware  by  this 
time  of  what  was  going  on,  and  they  crowded  the  rail  and 
in  stentorian  tones  bawled  encouragement  to  the  China- 
woman and  her  family  in  the  sampan.  Foot  by  foot  the 
launch  came  on,  and  inch  by  inch  the  sampan  moved. 
Heavens !  it  makes  me  shiver  to  think  of  it,  not  that  I 
cared  about  the  baggage  so  much,  for  if  it  hadn't  arrived 
I  would  have  gotten  ofif  the  boat  and  gone  over  and 
kicked  the  hotel  man,  a  thing  I  was  aching  to  do,  anyway. 
The  excitement  of  those  few  minutes  sent  the  shivers  up 
and  down  my  back. 

Foot  by  foot  the  mail  launch  gained.  Now  it  was  less 
than  a  quarter  of  a  mile  away.  The  Chinawoman  and 
the  sampan  then  seemed  to  understand  what  all  the  ex- 
citement was  about,  and  with  a  Chinese  shriek  the  woman 
bent  to  the  oar  and  her  family  did  likewise.  The  launch 
was  only  a  hundred  yards  behind.  The  sampan  doubled 
her  speed.  The  launch  was  fifty,  forty,  twenty  yards 
away,  and  at  last  the  sampan  bumped  her  nose  into  the 
ship.  She  had  won  by  a  neck,  and  a  mighty  sigh  went 
up. 

Well,  sir, if  baggage  ever  moved  fast,  that  baggage  did. 
It  fairly  climbed  up  the  side  of  the  ship.  The  hat-box 
came  first,  and  the  army  officer's  wife  sank  down  on  that 
and  moaned,  "  Thank  God !  thank  God !  "  while  her  hus- 
band fanned  her  with  his  hat.    Well,  that  is  the  end  of  the 


288  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

story.  The  mails  came  up  the  Stuttgart's  side  at  tHe  same 
time  with  the  baggag"e,  and  the  Stuttgart  blew  her  whis- 
tle and  started  off.  There  is  a  German  band  on  this  ship, 
but  I'll  tell  you  all  about  that  to-morrow,  and  I'll  write 
you  the  story  of  an  event  in  the  Hong  Kong  Hotel,  too, 
if  I  can  find  the  time. 

On  Board  the  Stuttgart,  in  the  China  Sea,  head- 
ing straight  for  the  equator,  April  4,  1901. 

This  is  the  first  ship  I  have  sailed  on  since  I  began  my 
journeys  that  thought  enough  of  its  passengers  to  print  a 
passenger  list.  I  enclose  you  a  copy  so  that  you  can  see 
who  my  traveling  companions  are.  The  army  officer's 
wife,  whom  I  told  you  about  yesterday,  is  "  Frau  X.,"  in 
the  list.  Her  husband  is  an  officer  in  the  artillery. 
She  herself  is  a  daughter  of  General  Z.  Her  hus- 
band's last  station  before  the  war  with  Spain  was  at  Fort 
Hamilton  in  Brooklyn,  so  you  see  they  were  neighbors 
of  ours.  He  has  a  four-months'  leave,  and  they  are 
traveling  home  by  way  of  Europe. 

Funny,  isn't  it,  how  one  learns  so  much  in  such  a  short 
time?  But  that  is  the  way,  out  in  this  part  of  the  world, 
and  especially  on  shipboard.  You  meet  a  person,  and  in 
about  seven  minutes  you  know  all  their  history  from  the 
time  they  were  born.  Of  course  the  baggage  incident  I 
told  you  about  yesterday  opened  the  way  for  an  acquaint- 
ance here.  About  half  an  hour  after  the  baggage  came 
aboard  and  the  Stuttgart  had  started  off  on  her  journey, 
I  sat  talking  with  Mr.  and  Mrs.  X.  First,  I  want 
to  say  that  on  this  voyage  I  intended  making  a  point  of 
not  letting  anybody  know  what  my  business  was.  I  just 
wanted  to  see  if  it  was  possible  to  travel  five  days  and 
keep  one's  fellow  passengers  in  more  or  less  ignorance 
about  one's  private  affairs.  Well, to  resume:  I  was  sitting 
talking  with  this  couple,  when  Mr.  X.  said,  "  Your 
name  is  Chamberlin,  isn't  it  ? "  I  said  that  it  was. 
"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  I  saw  it  on  your  baggage.  We  have 
heard  of  you.  You  are  with  The  Sun,  aren't  you?  You 
have  been  up  in  Peking  ?  "  You  could  have  knocked  me 
down  with  a  feather.  The  name,  of  course,  was  easy 
enough  to  get  hold   of,  because  all   my  baggage   was 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  289 

marked — but  the  rest  of  it!  "Yes,"  Mrs.  X.  went 
on,  "  we  have  heard  all  about  you.  You  are  a  friend  of 
Colonel  D.  and  of  General  Chaffee.  The  Colonel  is  down 
in  Manila,  and  he  told  us  about  you."  So  you  see  how 
impossible  it  is  to  keep  your  business  away  from  other 
people.  This  is  just  in  line  with  what  I  told  you  the  other 
day  about  meeting  people  you  know,  no  matter  where  you 

Besides  the  cabin  passengers  whose  names  are  on  the 
enclosed  list,  the  Stuttgart  carries  about  400  German  sol- 
diers, who  have  been  on  duty  in  North  China,  and 
are  returning  home,  and  some  thirty  or  forty  German 
officers.  It  is  a  home  party  altogether.  The  soldiers  are 
traveling  in  the  steerage  like  a  lot  of  emigrants,  and  the 
officers  travel  first  class.  The  ship  carries  a  lot  of  second- 
class  passengers,  too,  but  who  they  are  I  don't  know. 
The  Stuttgart  is  a  much  better  ship  in  every  way  than  the 
Plassy,  and  I  must  say  I  like  the  German  way  of  doing 
things  better  than  the  English. 

Nothing  has  happened  to-day  to  talk  to  you  about, 
except  the  beautiful  sunrise,  so  I'll  say  good-bye  again. 

On  Board  the  Stuttgart,  in  the  Gulf  of  Siam^ 
Good  Friday,  April  5,  1901. 

Hot !  Gee  whillikens !  I  am  back  in  the  tropics,  and, 
so  soon  after  a  Pekingese  Winter  and  a  freezing  trip 
from  North  China,  maybe  I  don't  feel  it.  It  is  blistering. 
Thank  fortune,  I  had  my  Summer  things  with  me  when 
I  started,  and  I  gathered  in  the  white  duck  I  told  you 
about  in  Hong  Kong.  I  have  on  at  this  minute  an  under- 
shirt and  a  white  duck  coat  that  buttons  up  to  the  neck 
and  a  pair  of  white  duck  trousers.  I  don't  see  what  else 
I  can  take  off  when  it  gets  hotter  unless  it  is  the  under- 
shirt. I  suppose  I  could  spare  that.  However,  I  may  get 
used  to  it  before  it  gets  hotter. 

We  dropped  the  last  point  of  land  in  China  out  of  sight 
at  6  o'clock  last  night,  left  the  China  Sea,  and  sailed 
into  the  Gulf  of  Siam.  The  land  was  the  French  colony 
of  Anam.  About  the  only  amusement  on  board  ship  is 
reading,  and  luckily  I  brought  along  a  lot  of  magazines 
I  got  in  Hong  Kong.    Of  course,  outside  of  that,  there  is 


290  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

some  fun  in  studying  the  characters  of  my  fellow-pas- 
sengers. 

There  is  an  old  man  aboard,  an  Englishman  and  a  K.  C, 
who  was  the  chairman  of  the  local  Plague  Committee  in 
Hong  Kong  in  1894,  when  2,000  people  died  with  it  in  the 
city  and  50,000  died  at  Canton  up  the  river.  He  told  me 
more  stories  about  the  plague  last  night  than  I  had  heard 
in  all  my  life  before.  It  certainly  is  a  horrible  disease. 
India  is  full  of  it  all  the  time,  but  it  doesn't  attack 
Europeans  or  foreigners.  In  Hong  Kong  only  two  white 
people  have  died  of  it.  They  were  nurses,  and  of  course 
were  working  around  the  patients  all  the  time.  Like  all 
plague  diseases  the  bubonic  lives  in  darkness  and  filth, 
and  dies  in  sunlight  and  air.  The  only  way  the  thing  was 
controlled  in  Hong  Kong  was  by  driving  the  people  out 
of  the  filthy  houses  and  keeping  them  out.  They  built 
a  high  wall  around  the  infected  district  and  let  no  one 
enter  for  six  months.  The  district  should  have  been 
burned,  but  the  Government  would  not  permit  that,  and 
at  the  end  of  the  six  months  the  Government  sold  the 
building  material  in  the  infected  houses  for  a  paltry  $300 
and  permitted  it  to  be  used  anywhere  in  the  city.  The 
result  is  that  Hong  Kong  has  never  since  been  free  of  the 
plague.  While  I  was  there,  there  was  an  average  of  four 
or  five  new  cases  a  day,  and  as  many  deaths.  Now,  let 
me  hear  another  Englishman  criticise  our  local  govern- 
ments in  America  and  I'll  tell  him  that  story.  That  $300 
has  probably  cost  3,000  lives  already. 

The  Stuttgart  is  due  in  Singapore  Sunday  night  or 
Monday  morning.  Singapore  is  about  100  miles  north 
of  the  equator.  I  think  I'll  have  to  take  a  run  down  and 
jump  over  the  line  just  for  fun. 

On  Board  the  Stuttgart,  in  the  Gulf  of  Siam, 
Saturday,  April  6,  1901. 

We  live  and  learn,  don't  we?  I  have  just  been  gather- 
ing a  fund  of  knowledge  about  promotions  in  the  Ameri- 
can army  and  the  distribution  of  the  favorite  posts.  The 
Gulf  of  Siam.near  the  Straits  of  Malacca,  is  a  funny  place 
to  get  such  information,  isn't  it?  But  here  is  where  I 
have    gathered    it,    nevertheless.       The    lesson    I    have 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  291 

gathered  is  that  it  is  as  good  a  thing  to  have  a  wife  when 
you  are  in  the  army  as  it  is  when  you  are  in  civil  Hfe. 
Now,  this  series  of  letters  on  the  Stuttgart  began  with  a 
tale  of  an  army  officer's  wife  and  her  baggage.  Let  it 
end  with  an  army  officer's  wife  and  her  husband. 

The  lady  to  whom  I  refer  is  very  frank,  refreshingly 
so.  Her  husband  is  a  Captain.  She  didn't  get  him  his 
captaincy,  but  she  did  get  him  a  soft  post  in  the  States. 
How  ?  Why,  by  getting  acquainted  with  three  or  four 
of  the  United  States  Senators  and  the  Adjutant-Gen- 
eral. She  got  well  acquainted  with  them,  gave  them  two 
or  three  dinners^  and  told  them  how  she  just  doted  on 
Fort  Hamilton  and  Brooklyn,  and  they  said,  "  Why  don't 
you  go  there  to  live?"  Whereupon  she  said,  "Oh,  but 
poor  X.  couldn't  hope  to  get  detailed  there."  And 
they  said,  "Oh,  we'll  fix  that."  And  they  did!  Easy, 
wasn't  it? 

Then,  when  the  Spanish  war  broke  out  and  her  hus- 
band wanted  to  go  to  the  Philippines,  where  he  wovild 
have  a  chance  to  distinguish  himself,  she  just  renewed 
her  acquaintance  with  the  powers  that  be  and  sighed  at 
the  bad  fortune  that  kept  the  men  at  Fort  Hamilton  on 
duty  there  when  they,  particularly  her  husband,  were  so, 
so  anxious  to  fight.  The  powers  agreed  with  her  that  it 
was  a  shame,  and  said  they'd  see  what  they  could  do. 
The  husband  went  to  the  Philippines,  taking  the  place 
of  some  fellow  who  didn't  have  any  wife  to  sigh  for  him. 
The  Army  Bill  came  along  and  gave  her  husband  promo- 
tion. He  is  returning  to  the  States.  He  thinks  the  best 
fort  in  the  States  is  at  the  Presidio,  in  San  Francisco,  and 
she  says  to  her  husband,  "  Now,  you  just  leave  me  in 
Washington  and  Pll  get  it  for  you,"  and  he  says,  "  That's 
all  right.  I  shan't  bother  you.  When  we're  there  Fll 
take  a  two-weeks'  leave,  and  you  can  see  what  you  can 
do."  And  she  says,  "  Well,  you'll  get  the  Presidio  all 
right." 

And  there  you  are !  You  see,  a  wife  is  a  mighty  handy 
thing  to  have  when  you  are  in  the  army.  I  certainly  am 
going  to  watch  and  see  if  the  Captain  lands  in  Presidio. 
If  he  does,  I  shall  advise  every  unmarried  man  in  the 
army  to  get  married  quickly,  then  pick  out  the  posts  they 


292  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

want,  and  send  their  wives  to  Washington.  I  Hope  tHe 
post  at  the  Presidio  is  not  commanded  now  by  a  man  with 
a  wife.     It  might  result  in  bad  feuds  among  the  ladies. 

Well,  this  stage  of  the  voyage  will  be  over 
to-morrow  evening,  when  the  Stuttgart  arrives  in  Singa- 
pore, which  is  the  chief  town  in  the  Straits  Settlements. 
I  shall  stay  there  only  long  enough  to  catch  a  steamer  to 
Calcutta,  and  then  I'll  be  off  for  the  Bay  of  Bengal  and 
another  lap  on  the  homeward  journey.  By  the  way,  if 
the  children  will  get  their  geographies  they  can  trace  my 
whole  journey,  and,  by  following  my  letters,  can  learn 
something  about  this  part  of  the  world  that  it  might  take 
them  a  much  longer  time  to  learn  at  school.  Start  them 
in  at  San  Francisco,  take  them  to  Honolulu,  Japan, 
Shanghai,  Tien  Tsin,  Peking,  back  to  Shanghai,  Hong 
Kong,  and  so  on  around. 

On  Board  the  Stuttgart,  off  Singapore,  April  7, 
1900. 

This  is  Easter  Sunday  evening,  and  Singapore  is  in 
sight.  In  fact,  we  are  lying  just  outside  the  harbor 
waiting  until  morning,  so  that  we  can  enter  and  go  up  to 
the  dock.  The  letters  that  I  have  written  you  since  I 
came  aboard  the  Stuttgart  I  will  mail  on  board,  so  this 
will  be  the  last  of  the  series  that  you  will  get  by  the 
present  mail. 

Not  much  to  tell  you,  except  to  repeat  what  I 
said  the  other  day.  It  is  sizzling  hot.  Easter  Sunday 
was  observed  on  board  the  Stuttgart  with  a  sacred  con- 
cert by  the  brass  band,  and  this  afternoon  free  beer  was 
served  to  the  350  German  soldiers  who  are  going  home. 
They  had  an  accordion,  a  drum  and  a  triangle,  and  they 
made  merry  and  had  a  concert  of  their  own.  The  Stutt- 
gart has  only  two  or  three  passengers  for  Singapore,  and 
they  are  travelers  like  myself.  One  of  them  is  bound 
for  Penang  and  one  for  Borneo  and  the  other  for 
Batavia,  in  Java.  Borneo  and  Java  are  both  south  of  the 
Strait,  and  Penang  is  one  of  the  towns  farther  up  on  the 
peninsula  on  which  Singapore  is  the  chief  city.  _  I  don't 
suppose  this  interests  you,  but  T  swear  I  am  getting  dull- 
headed  as  a  mule.     I  can't  think  of  a  thing  to  write  about 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  293 

in  the  absence  of  anything  happening  on  the  steamer,  and 
there  hasn't  been  a  happening  worth  recording  since  I 
came  aboard,  at  Hong  Kong.  However,  I  am  1,400 
miles  nearer  home  than  I  was  at  Hong  Kong,  so  I  re- 
joice accordingly.  I'll  tell  you  about  Singapore  after  I 
have  seen  it,  so  until  then  good-bye. 

Singapore,  RiVFFLEs'  Hotel,  Monday,  April  8,  1901. 

Please  don't  assume  because  I  am  living  at  Raffles' 
Hotel  that  I  am  stopping  at  a  gambling  house  or  a  church 
fair.  I  don't  suppose  Raffles  was  to  blame  for  his  name, 
and  of  course  he  had  a  right  to  go  into  the  hotel  business 
if  he  wanted  to.  You  will  notice  by  this  letterhead  that 
he  has  gone  into  it  in  several  towns  besides  Singapore. 
The  Stuttgart  got  up  to  her  dock  here  about  8  o'clock  this 
morning  and  I  have  been  seeing  Singapore  since.  It  is 
not  a  bad  town,  but  there  is  not  enough  in  it  to  make  it 
worth  an  extended  letter.  A  good  many  things  here, 
however,  are  not  like  the  same  things  in  other  places. 

For  instance,  the  horses  here  are  all  about  the  size  of 
Shetland  ponies.  The  drivers  are  all  Malays,  and  all 
the  wagons  have  a  little  bag  of  fresh  cut  grass  tied  on 
behind.  When  the  wagons  are  waiting  for  fares  the 
Malay  driver  takes  a  little  bunch  of  grass  from  the  bag 
and  lets  the  ponies  nibble  from  his  hands.  So  you  see, 
when  a  pony  is  not  working  it  is  always  eating.  Not 
only  does  the  driver  feed  the  pony  when  he  is  waiting 
for  a  fare,  but  when  he  has  a  fare  and  just  stops  for  a 
minute,  off  he  jumps  and  holds  out  the  grass  to  the  little 
beasts.  When  you  are  ready  to  go  on  in  one  of  these 
public  conveyances,  the  driver  doesn't  climb  upon  the 
seat  and  say  "  g'lang " ;  he  takes  hold  of  the  pony's 
bridle  and  starts  him  off  by  pulling  at  him.  He  runs 
along  beside  him  until  he  gets  him  going  moderately  fast, 
and  then  he  jumps  up  on  the  shafts  and  finally  climbs  on 
the  seat. 

Besides  the  public  hacks  they  have  'rickshas  here  as  in 
Japan  and  China,  but  they  are  not  the  narrow  things  that 
are  used  in  those  countries ;  they  are  all  of  them  wide 
enough  to  carry  two  passengers  on  the  seat.  The  coolies 
are  just  about  the  same  size  as  the  coolies  in  Japan  and 


294  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

China,  so  they  may  be  said  to  work  twice  as  hard  for  the 
same  amount  of  money. 

So  much  for  the  passenger  transportation  department 
of  the  Straits  Settlements.  The  freight  is  all  carried  in 
two- wheeled  carts  drawn  by  buffaloes  with  humps  between 
their  shoulders.  They  are  harnessed  to  the  carts  by 
means  of  a  yoke,  but  to  guide  them  they  have  a  piece  of 
rope  run  through  their  noses  and  brought  up,  the  two 
ends  being  crossed  in  front  of  their  heads,  and  then  tied 
to  the  horns.  It  is  a  rather  cruel-looking  arrangement, 
but  whether  it  is  cruel  or  not  I  can't  say,  as  I  have  never 
had  it  tried  on  me. 

Singapore  harbor  reminded  me  very  much  of  the  har- 
bor at  Honolulu.  While  we  were  waiting  for  the  doctor 
to  come  aboard  this  morning,  twenty  or  thirty  canoes, 
each  with  a  native  on  his  knees,  were  paddled  up  and  the 
natives  bid  for  chances  to  dive  for  money.  Anything 
over  a  lo-cent  piece  was  sufficient.  The  passengers 
gathered  along  the  rail  and  began  throwing  away  their 
small  change,  just  as  the  passengers  did  in  Honolulu. 
No  matter  how  far  off  a  coin  was  thrown,  head  first  over- 
board would  go  the  native  and  without  a  miss  he  would 
come  up  with  the  piece.  But  it  wasn't  the  diving  that 
caught  me;  it  was  the  skill  with  which  they  managed  to 
get  back  into  their  boats.  These  boats  were  narrow 
affairs  which  a  person  not  used  to  canoeing  would  upset, 
just  trying  to  sit  up  straight.  When  a  native  dived,  his 
boat  went  adrift.  When  he  came  up  he  would  swim  to 
the  drifting  boat  and  quicker  than  you  could  say  Jack 
Robinson  he  would  be  in.  Naturally,  slopping  around 
as  they  did,  the  little  boats  took  in  a  good  deal  of  water 
and  every  once  in  a  while  the  occupant  would  bail  it  out, 
not  with  a  tin  can,  or  a  dipper,  or  in  any  American  way, 
but  with  his  foot.  He'd  slip  one  leg  out  from  under  him 
and  shoot  forward  his  foot  like  a  streak  of  lightning,  and 
it  never  took  more  than  about  three  punches  to  drive  out 
all  the  water  there  was  in  the  boat. 

But  to  get  back  to  Singapore.  White  clothes  are  the 
fashion  here,  and  two-storied  hats.  I  don't  know  what 
else  to  call  the  hats,  I'm  sure.  They  are  made  of  pith  or 
cork,   with    wide   brims.      They   look   as   though   they 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  296 

weighed  a  ton  and  they  actually  weigh  about  as  much  as 
an  ordinary  straw  hat.  They  set  away  from  the  head 
and  then  they  shield  you  from  the  sun,  which  is  certainly 
hot  here.  They  look  like  the  devil,  but  they  feel  all 
right,  I  know,  for  I  have  possessed  myself  of  one.  This 
dress  I  speak  of  as  being  in  fashion.  I  mean,  of  course, 
in  fashion  with  foreigners.  As  for  the  natives,  they  are 
happy  in  a  single  garment.  That  is  a  kind  of  skirt.  It 
is  big  enough  to  wrap  around  you  twice,  but  it  is  wrapped 
only  once.  Then  it  is  caught  close  to  the  body  in  front 
with  one  hand  and  what  is  left  of  it  is  pulled  out  with  the 
other.  It  is  folded  over  one  side  and  then  folded  back. 
That  makes  four  thicknesses  at  the  stomach,  and  these 
four  thicknesses  are  rolled  over  and  over  three  or 
four  times.  This  rolling  fastens  the  skirt  on  so  that  it 
won't  fall  ofif  and  won't  pull  apart,  and  the  only  way  to 
get  it  off  is  to  unroll  it. 

Besides  this  skirt,  the  natives  have  long  hair,  and  that 
completes  their  apparel.  When  they  want  to  sit  down 
they  squat  like  monkeys,  their  knees  on  a  level  with  their 
chins.  The  dress  of  the  women  is  the  same  as  that  of 
the  men,  but  they  are  vain  creatures  and  wear  much 
jewelry.  You  have  heard  of  the  woman  with  rings  on 
her  fingers  and  bells  on  her  toes,  who  was  bound  to  have 
music  wherever  she  went,  or  words  to  that  effect.  Well, 
the  Malay  woman  beats  her.  She  wears  two  sets  of 
earrings  in  her  ears.  One  set  hangs  from  the  lobes,  like 
civilized  earrings.  The  other  set  is  hanging  from  a  hole 
in  the  upper  part  of  each  ear.  Then  she  wears  nose 
rings,  one  fastened  in  each  nostril,  and  she  wears  toe 
rings,  you  might  say,  one  on  the  index  toe  of  each  foot,  if 
the  toe  next  to  the  great  one  could  be  dubbed  the  index 
toe.  The  earrings  and  nose  rings  are  of  gold,  and  the 
toe  rings  are  of  silver.  I  can  tell  you,  they  make  a  great 
show.  No  native  wears  shoes  or  other  foot  covering, 
and  the  consequence  is  that  the  feet  of  most  of  them  are 
shaped  like  this  :     -^,s^ 

I  am  not  much  of  an  artist,  but  that  will  give  you  the 
idea.     Well,  I  guess  that  is  enough  about  the  people. 

As  for  the  hotel,  it  is  a  smashing  big  place  and  just 
about  as  bad  as  it  is  big.     However,  I  have  been  in  many 


296  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

that  were  a  heap  sight  worse.  A  room  here  consists  of  a 
bedroom,  a  small  dressing  room,  and  a  bath  room.  Out 
in  this  part  of  the  world  if  you  got  into  a  bath  tub  as  we 
do  at  home  the  people  would  think  you  were  crazy. 
The  bath  tub  is  a  round  bowl  of  water  about  three  feet 
deep.  Beside  it  is  a  bucket,  and,  to  take  a  bath,  you 
stand  in  the  tub,  dip  the  bucket  into  the  water  and  then 
pour  it  over  you.  Funny  way  to  bathe,  isn't  it  ?  It  is  the 
shower  bath  principle,  but  why  they  don't  introduce 
modern  shower  baths  I  can't  for  the  life  of  me  imagine. 
Besides  these  rooms,  which  are  all  a  part  of  your  one 
room,  a  section  of  front  stoop  goes  with  it.  It  is  fenced 
in  to  keep  other  people  out.  The  food  is  the  worst 
feature  of  the  hotel.  I'll  write  you  again  to-morrow,  and 
tell  you  what  else  I  have  found  out. 

Singapore,  Tuesday,  April  9,  1901. 
Singapore  itself  is  not  a  very  beautiful  city,  but  I  must 
say  the  country  around  it  is  delightful.  I  went  out  this 
morning  to  visit  the  newspapers  here  and  found  that  I 
had  got  around  too  early  for  the  proprietors,  so  I  told 
the  driver  of  my  cab  to  drive  me  about.  He  started  out 
and  drove  for  two  hours  over  roads  that  were  simply 
perfect.  Among  other  places  he  took  me  to  a  very  beauti- 
ful Botanical  Garden  that  is  supported  by  the  Govern- 
ment. I  say  it  was  very  beautiful.  I  mean  com- 
paratively, of  course.  It  was  not  nearly  so  beautiful  as 
either  Central  Park  or  Prospect  Park,  but  compared  to 
the  average  run  of  show  places  in  this  part  of  the  world 
it  was  very  fine.  I  also  drove  about  the  city  itself.  It 
is  about  like  all  other  cities  in  the  East.  The  stores  are 
nearly  all  of  them  kept  and  the  business  is  done  by  the 
Chinese.  The  shops  are  just  as  dirty  as  the  average 
Chinese  shop,  and  there  is  nothing  at  all  attractive  about 
them.  The  only  things  here  in  the  way  of  souvenirs  are 
sea  shells  and  Malacca  canes,  made  of  the  joints  of  the 
malacca  bamboo.  When  they  are  polished  and  properly 
smoked  (burned,  they  call  it  here)  they  make  a  very 
beautiful  stick.  They  cost  $1  Mexican  apiece,  or  50 
cents  of  our  money,  and  I  think  I'll  buy  one  or  two  to  give 
away.     I  don't  mean  that  the  smoked  ones  are  a  dollar 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  297 

each.  They  run  up  as  high  as  $15.00  or  $20.00,  but  the 
common  ones,  which  are  very  fine  indeed,  cost  only  a 
dollar  each.  While  the  Malays  are  the  natives  here, 
nearly  all  the  work  is  done  by  Chinese.  All  the  servants 
except  the  nurses  are  Chinese.  The  language  is  Malay. 
People  all  speak  to  their  Chinese  servants  in  Malay. 
Queer,  isn't  it  ? 

I  was  reading  over  the  rules  of  the  hotel  this  morning. 
One  of  them  says  that  all  permanent  guests  must  provide 
their  own  servants.  The  hotel  condescends  to  look  after 
transients.  I  asked  the  clerk  what  was  called  a  per- 
manent guest,  and  he  said  that  when  a  person  stayed  a 
week  he  was  expected  to  have  a  servant  of  his  own.  I 
shall  not  stay  a  week — I  have  resolved  upon  that.  The 
people  here  are  none  of  them  in  a  hurry,  wherein  they 
resemble  the  entire  East,  and  the  foreign  business  men 
have  the  same  lack  of  knowledge  about  the  things  they 
ought  to  know  that  is  characteristic  of  China.  For  in- 
stance, I  went  to  the  steamship  company  this  morning  to 
find  when  I  could  get  a  boat  to  Calcutta.  "  I'm  sure  I 
don't  know,"  said  the  man  I  saw. 

"  Well,  when  do  you  expect  one  to  go?  "  I  ventured. 

"  Well,"  said  he,  "  perhaps  in  a  day  or  two." 

And  that  was  as  near  as  I  could  come  to  it !  I  after- 
wards made  a  visit  to  the  harbor^  and  found  a  boat,  the 
Captain  of  which  thought  maybe  he  might  sail  to-mor- 
row. I  am  pinning  my  faith  on  that.  She  goes  to  Ran- 
goon in  Burmah,  and  there  is  a  mail  steamer  leaving 
Rangoon  for  Calcutta  twice  a  week.  I  certainly  hope  I 
can  get  away  to-morrow,  for  Singapore,  I  must  confess, 
rather  palls  on  me. 

Singapore,  Wednesday,  April  10,  1901. 
I  leave  here  at  daylight  in  the  morning  for  Rangoon, 
making  close  connection  there,  I  hope,  for  Calcutta.  Ran- 
goon is  in  Burmah,  across  the  Bay  of  Bengal  from  India. 
I  ought  to  arrive  in  Calcutta  on  the  i8th,  Allahabad 
on  the  2 1  St,  Bombay  on  the  23rd,  and  then  I'll  sail  away 
for  the  Suez  and  Paris,  London  and  Home.  I  thought 
until  last  night  that  the  old  rule  of  meeting  people  you 
know  wherever  you  go  would  fail  here,  but  a  young  fel- 


298  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

low  came  and  sat  down  at  my  table  in  the  dining  room. 
He  was  plainly  an  American,  and  very  naturally  we  got 
into  conversation.  He  turned  out  to  be  Dr.  T.,  an 
assistant  of  Dr.  Bull  in  New  York,  and  the  friend  and 
school-mate  of  Dr.  S.  and  Dr.  McW.,  who  were  fellow 
passengers  of  mine  on  the  Peking,  coming  to  China. 
We  spent  a  mighty  pleasant  evening  together.  He  is 
going  to  Java  at  daylight,  and  then  he  is  going  home, 
getting  to  London  about  the  same  time  that  I  do. 

I  finished  up  all  my  business  in  Singapore  this  morn- 
ing, packed  my  trunk  and  have  sent  it  off  to  the  steamer, 
and  now  I  am  only  waiting  until  I  get  my  dinner  before 
going  on  board  the  ship,  the  Palamcotta,  a  British  boat. 
There  is  not  much  left  to  tell  you  about  Singapore,  except 
that  here  they  do  everything  just  the  opposite  to  what  they 
do  it  in  our  part  of  the  world,  exactly  as  in  China. 
I  forget  now  whether  I  mentioned  in  any  of  my  letters  this 
cantankerous  custom  of  always  doing  things  backside 
foremost.  As  I  sat  on  the  porch  of  the  hotel  this  morn- 
ing, looking  out  on  the  water,  the  thing  struck  me  forcibly. 
I  saw  several  boats  being  rowed.  I  noticed  that  all  the 
oarsmen  stood  up  and  pushed  the  oars  instead  of  pulling 
them,  as  we  do.  Then  I  noticed  the  'ricksha  men. 
They  all  pushed  the  'rickshas  instead  of  pulling  them. 
They  stood  between  the  shafts  and  took  hold  of  them 
forward  of  their  bodies,  then  pushing  as  they  ran.  I 
saw  some  men  alongshore  hauling  in  some  rope,  and  I 
noticed  that,  instead  of  taking  hold  of  the  rope  and  pull- 
ing, they  grabbed  it  ahead  of  their  bodies  and  pushed  on 
it.  The  thing  hadn't  struck  me  before,  but  when  I  noticed 
these  instances  I  remembered  that  everywhere  in  the  East 
that  I  have  been,  people  push  instead  of  pulling,  as  we 
do.  It  is  just  another  evidence  of  the  cantankerousness 
of  this  part  of  the  world. 

This  brings  to  mind  another  strange  thing  that  I  don't 
think  I  have  mentioned.  That  is,  in  China,  the  distance 
from  A.  to  B.  is  sometimes  less  than  a  third  of  the  dis- 
tance from  B.  to  A.  For  instance,  if  you  ask  a  China- 
man how  far  it  is  from  Feng  Ti  to  Kow  Loon  he  will  tell 
you  it  is  20  li  (Chinese  miles).  If  you  ask  him  how  far 
it  is  from  Kow  Loon  to  Feng  Ti  he  will  tell  you  it  is  60 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  299 

li.  The  reason  is  that  from  Kow  Loon  to  Feng-  Ti  it 
is  uphill,  and  your  Chinaman  figures  that  it  takes  three 
times  as  much  energy  to  go  from  Kow  Loon  to  Feng  Ti, 
uphill,  as  it  does  to  go  from  Feng  Ti  to  Kow  Loon,  which 
is  downhill.  Therefore,  it  is  three  times  as  far,  and  you 
might  argue  with  him  a  thousand  years  to  prove  that 
the  distance  was  exactly  the  same,  and  you  wouldn't  con- 
vince him. 

Oh,  there  is  one  Singapore  custom  that  I  forgot  to 
mention.  Everybody  here  sleeps  with  a  Dutch  wife. 
Don't  get  shocked,  now,  when  I  tell  you  that  I  have  been 
sleeping  with  one  for  two  nights.  A  Dutch  wife  is  a 
perfectly  round  bolster,  the  purpose  of  which  is  to  give 
your  knees  a  little  elevation,  so  that  the  air  can  get  all 
around  you  better.  It  is  cussed  hot  here,  as  I  have  already 
told  you,  and  the  beds  don't  have  any  bedclothes.  You 
just  lie  down  and  then  stick  one  knee  over  the  Dutch 
wife  and  the  air  gets  a  fine  shot  at  you.  They  are  mighty 
comfortable  things. 

I  don't  think  of  anything  else  to  tell  you  about  Singa- 
pore, and  so  I'll  say  good-bye.  My  next  letter  will  be 
written  on  board  the  Palamcotta. 

On  Board  the  Palamcotta,  in  the  Straits  of 
Malacca,  Thursday,  April  ii,  1901. 

I  am  at  sea  again,  this  time  on  an  English  ship,  and  I 
have  the  distinguished  honor  of  being  the  only  first-class 
passenger  aboard.  I  am  bound  for  Rangoon,  in  Burmah, 
and  if  I  have  good  luck  I  shall  get  there  on  Monday  morn- 
ing and  catch  a  steamer  Monday  afternoon  for  Calcutta, 
arriving  there  Thursday.  The  Captain  of  the  Palamcotta 
is  inclined  to  be  friendly.  He  is  44  years  old.  He  was 
born  in  England.  He  came  here  when  he  was  19  years 
old,  in  the  employ  of  the  British-India  Steam  Navi- 
gation Company.  After  serving  nine  years  he  got  his 
captaincy.  He  has  been  a  Captain  sixteen  years,  and  is 
now  completing  his  twenty-fifth  year  in  the  company's 
employ.  When  he  has  finished  that  he  is  going  home  to 
England,  and  is  going  to  try  to  get  the  company  to  give 
him  a  pension  of  £100  a  year.  His  salary  is  £600  a  year, 
but  he  makes  quite  a  good  deal  on  the  outside.    Last  year 


300  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

was  the  best  year  he  has  ever  had,  and  he  cleared  £i,ooo. 
On  an  average,  however,  he  has  made  only  iSoo  a  year. 
He  is  the  youngest  Captain  in  the  company's  employ,  and 
he  says  he  is  the  best. 

Up  to  four  years  ago,  the  loth  of  June  coming,  the 
Captain  had  never  seen  a  woman  whom  he  would  care 
to  make  his  wife.  On  that  day  his  ship  arrived  in  Cal- 
cutta, and  in  the  crowd  waiting  to  greet  one  of  the  pas- 
sengers was  a  beautiful  girl.  She  had  blonde  hair,  blue 
eyes,  and  a  peaches-and-cream  complexion.  She  was  26 
years  old  the  26th  of  May,  then  passed.  The  moment  he 
saw  her  he  fell  in  love  with  her.  He  found  out  that  she 
was  the  daughter  of  the  Chief  Justice  of  Calcutta,  and 
his  heart  sank  within  him,  knowing  that  he,  a  poor  ship 
Captain,  had  no  chance  to  wed  one  so  high  in  social  life. 
However,  being  an  Englishman,  he  thought  he'd  have  a 
try  at  it,  anyway,  and  finally  he  succeeded  in  getting  an  in- 
troduction to  the  lady.  After  a  reasonable  courtship  he 
asked  her  to  marry  him,  and  she  said  she  would,  only  her 
father  and  mother  both  opposed  it.  He  went  at  the  old 
folks  and  finally  convinced  them  that  if  he  didn't  marry 
the  girl  with  their  consent  he  would  marry  her  without, 
and,  after  a  stormy  interview,  they  consented.  They 
were  married,  and  he  made  a  home  for  her  at  Rangoon, 
on  a  beautiful  hillside,  where  they  lived  a  continual 
honeymoon  for  nineteen  months.  They  had  a  little  girl, 
23/2  years  old,  last  Easter.  The  wife  died  sixteen  months 
ago,  July  coming.  He  tried  to  keep  the  child  with  him, 
but  its  grandmother  insisted  on  having  it  with  her  at  home 
in  England,  so  she  has  had  it  ever  since. 

When  the  Captain  goes  home,  after  his  twenty-five 
years'  service,  he  is  going  to  marry  his  sister-in-law — 
that  is,  his  wife's  sister.  She  is  only  20  years  old,  and  is 
one  of  the  loveliest  girls  in  the  world.  He  hasn't  told  her 
yet  that  he  is  going  to  marry  her,  and  he  is  not  going  to 
say  anything  to  her  about  it  until  he  sees  her  in  England. 
It  is  against  the  law  of  the  Episcopal  Church  to  marry 
one's  wife's  sister,  but  it  is  easy  enough  to  get  around 
that  by  going  to  the  Continent.  That  is  what  he  is  going 
to  do. 

But  wait;  maybe  you  are  not  interested  in  all  this. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  301 

I  confess  that  I  wasn't,  but  the  Captain  told  it  all  to  me 
on  an  hour's  acquaintance,  so  I  made  up  my  mind  there 
must  be  something-  in  it  and  have  jotted  it  down.  If  it 
does  not  interest  you,  of  course,  you  can  forget  it  right 
away,  and  no  harm  will  have  been  done. 

The  Palamcotta  is  skirting  along  the  coast  of  the  Strait, 
and  a  beautiful  coast  it  is,  too.  She  is  a  big  cargo  ship, 
with  a  crew  entirely  of  Malays  and  only  five  white  men 
aboard,  the  Captain,  two  mates,  the  Chief  Engineer,  and 
myself.  The  Malays  always  address  a  white  man  as 
"  Marster."  They  are  not  nearly  as  good  workers  as  the 
Chinese,  nor  are  they  as  honest,  while  they  can  lie  with  a 
perfectly  straight  face,  an  accomplishment,  by  the  way, 
that  is  not  uncommon  in  the  East.  Now,  let  me  see ;  I 
don't  think  there  is  anything  left  to  talk  about  but  the 
weather.  It  is  simply  perfect.  There  is  just  enough  breeze 
blowing  to  take  the  edge  off  the  heat.  I  certainly  hope  it 
will  keep  up  until  we  get  to  Rangoon.  But  that  is  almost 
too  much  to  expect.  If  this  letter  interests  you,  sweet- 
heart, I'll  let  you  know  more  about  the  Captain  to-mor- 
row. 

Rangoon,  in  Burmah,  April  15,  1901. 
I  am  at  Rangoon  at  last,  but  only  for  three  hours.    The 
steamer  for  Calcutta  leaves  here  at  2  o'clock,  and  it  was 

II  o'clock  when  the  Palamcotta  arrived.  I  wrote  you 
only  one  letter  on  the  trip  up  because,  as  I  told  you  in 
that  letter,  I  was  the  only  passenger  on  the  ship,  and  there 
was  absolutely  nothing  to  write  about  except  the  Cap- 
tain's family  fortunes  and  misfortunes,  and  I  imagine 
that  you  heard  all  of  those  that  you  wanted  to  hear  in 
my  one  letter.  I  have  been  around  Rangoon  and  have 
seen  all  that  was  possible  to  see  in  the  short  time  I  had, 
and  I  am  writing  this  on  the  ship,  which  I  expect  will 
start  almost  any  moment. 

They  have  one  show  place  here.  It  is  a  gold-plated 
pagoda,  one  of  the  largest  in  Burmah.  I  think  I  wrote 
you  a  letter  from  China  about  pagodas.  Well,  this  is  just 
one  of  those  things,  but  it  is  much  larger  and  much  hand- 
somer than  anything  I  had  ever  seen  before,  and,  as  I 
say,  it  is  gold-plated.     That  is  literal,  too.     The  whole 


302  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

exterior  of  the  building  is  faced  with  gold  leaf.  The  in- 
terior, of  course,  is  the  abode  of  gods — brass,  wood,  and 
otherwise. 

But  what  interested  me  here  much  more  than  the  pa- 
goda was  the  elephants.  You  know  Burmah  is  a  great 
place  for  elephants,  and  they  use  them  here  to  work. 
There  is  lots  of  teak  wood  in  Burmah.  You  know  that 
teak  is  extremely  heavy  and  extremely  hard.  There  are 
sawmills  in  Rangoon  where  it  is  sawed  into  boards  and 
into  logs,  and  it  is  in  these  mills  that  the  big  elephants 
work,  with  the  strength  of  a  score  of  men  and  with  human 
intelligence.  If  anybody  had  told  me  what  they  did  I 
certainly  would  not  have  believed  it,  but  seeing  is  beUev- 
ing.  Each  sawmill  has  two  or  three  elephants,  and  each 
elephant  has  a  rider.  Every  bit  of  lifting  that  there  is  to 
be  done  about  the  mills  is  done  by  the  elephants.  They 
walk  down  to  the  river  and  pull  the  huge  logs  out  of  the 
water.  They  lift  them  up,  balance  them  on  their  tusks, 
and  take  them  in  and  put  them  in  place  for  sawing.  Then 
they  take  the  sawed  lumber  and  pile  it  up.  They  pile  it 
perfectly  even. 

Most  of  the  boards  are  so  heavy  that  ten  men  couldn't 
lift  one  of  them,  yet  a  single  elephant  will  pick  up  a  board, 
walk  a  hundred  yards  with  it,  and  deposit  it  on  a  pile  with 
no  apparent  effort  at  all.  When  he  gets  it  on  the  pile 
he  will  walk  to  the  end  and  push  it  back  and  forward 
until  it  is  perfectly  even  with  all  the  other  boards  in  the 
pile.  Then,  after  a  pile  is  finished,  he  will  squint  one 
eye  down  the  ends,  and  if,  by  any  chance,  a  board  is  mis- 
placed, he  will  push  it  with  his  tusks  until  it  is  straight. 
All  this  is  done  without  a  word  of  telling. 

While  I  was  watching  the  elephants  12  o'clock  came.  At 
the  sound  of  the  whistle  every  elephant  stood  still  in  his 
tracks,  dropped  whatever  he  might  be  carrying,  and  then 
walked  off  to  get  his  dinner.  That  is  what  the  average 
laborer  in  the  United  States  does,  you  know, — on  the 
stroke  of  the  hour,  drops  everything  and  goes  to  eat.  The 
men  at  the  mills  told  me  that  no  amount  of  coaxing  or 
driving  would  induce  one  of  the  elephants  to  do  a  bit  of 
work  from  twelve  to  1.30  o'clock,  and  that,  if  the  whistle 
sounded  to  resume  work  a  few  minutes  before  the  time,  the 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  303 

big  brutes  would  simply  stand  where  they  were  and  re- 
fuse to  move  until  the  full  time  was  up.  They  seemed 
to  know  to  a  minute  when  the  time  was  up,  and  then, 
without  any  urging,  back  they  would  go  to  work.  The 
show  was  certainly  a  wonderful  one,  and  I  would  not  have 
missed  it  for  a  great  deal.  I  send  you  a  book  of  pictures 
of  Rangoon,  and  one  of  them  shows  two  of  these  ele- 
phants at  work.  I  think  I  could  have  spent  a  whole  day 
watching  them. 

The  people  here  are  interesting,  too.  They  vary  in 
color  from  chocolate  to  black.  The  women  are  fine-fea- 
tured, and  the  men  are,  most  of  them,  high-class  in  ap- 
pearance. Their  dress,  of  course,  is  outlandish,  but  it  is 
very  picturesque.  The  men  wear  shirts  like  the  natives  in 
Singapore.  They  run  to  high  colors — bright  red,  green, 
vivid  blue,  pink,  and  the  like,  a  brilliant  yellow  being 
greatly  fancied  by  them.  They  wear  the  immense  head- 
gear of  the  Indians,  but,  instead  of  being  plain  white,  the 
turban  is  usually  some  bright  color  that  makes  it  very 
picturesque.  The  fact  that  the  older  ladies  smoke  clay 
pipes  or  huge  cheroots,  and  that  the  younger  ones  smoke 
cigarettes,  does  not  add  to  their  attractiveness,  it  is  true, 
but  when  they  all  do  it  one  gets  used  to  it  very  quickly. 
For  instance,  I  have  been  here  only  a  couple  of  hours, 
and  it  has  ceased  to  be  strange  to  me  already.  This 
is  a  great  place  for  silver  work  and  wood-carving,  but  I 
haven't  had  a  chance  to  see  any  of  it. 

The  steamer  I  am  going  to  Calcutta  on  is  the  Malda, 
of  the  British-India  Navigation  Company.  She  is  little, 
and  she  looks  uncomfortable.  But  she'll  have  to  do.  She 
is  also  crowded  with  passengers.  I've  got  a  miserable 
little  stateroom  right  over  the  wheel,  where  I  suppose  it 
will  be  impossible  to  sleep. 

Hello,  we  are  off!  The  whistle  has  just  blown,  and  the 
Malda  is  slipping  away  from  the  wharf.  One  of  the  pas- 
sengers is  a  fat  lady.  She  is  standing  about  five  feet  from 
me,  waving  her  handkerchief  at  a  man  on  the  pier.  She 
has  just  yelled,  "  Don't  wait,  Jim."  Jim  nods  to  her. 
She  has  just  yelled,  "  Go  away,  Jim;  don't  wait;  the  sun 
is  fearful."  Jim  still  stands  there,  looking  at  the  ship 
and  waving  his  handkerchief.    She  is  yelling  again,  "  Jim, 


304  ORDEREDTOCHINA 

do  get  out  of  the  sun ;  you'll  be  sunstruck.  Dear  Jim,  go 
away !  "  She  stamps  her  foot.  Jim  doesn't  budge.  Again 
she  cries,  "  Jim,  do  you  hear  me  ?  Go  away !  It  isn't 
lucky  to  watch  anybody  sail  off." 

Ah,  there  we  have  it.  I  thought  she  wasn't  very  much 
worried  about  Jim's  chances  of  escaping  sunstroke.  She 
is  superstitious,  and  she  doesn't  want  to  take  any  chances. 
Jim  is  slowly  moving  away.  Now  he  has  disappeared. 
She  is  gathering  up  in  her  arms  two  of  the  homeliest, 
wretchedest-looking  pups  I  have  ever  seen,  and  she  is 
kissing  them  and  hugging  them.  I  wish  Jim  could  see 
that.     Whew,  it's  tough  ! 

I  guess  all  the  passengers  are  out  here  on  the  deck. 
There  are  two  Parsee  ladies  in  native  costume,  and  two 
nurses,  also  native,  with  half  a  dozen  children.  The 
whole  party  is  gathered  along  the  rail,  waving  handker- 
chiefs, though  we  are  half  a  mile  away  from  the  pier. 
There  are  three  or  four  more  or  less  prosperous-looking 
citizens.  There  is  a  man  with  a  broken  nose  and  a  fox- 
terrier,  a  fat  globe-trotter,  armed  with  a  lot  of  Cook's 
Guides,  and  a  thin  youngster,  who  looks  as  if  he  intended 
to  be  seasick.  These  are  all  the  first-class  passengers  that 
I  see  now,  but  the  whole  forward  part  of  the  boat  is 
packed  and  jammed  with  natives.  There  must  be  200  of 
them.  Well,  I'll  close  this  letter,  and  will  tell  you  more 
about  my  fellow-voyagers  in  another,  when  I  get  to  know 
them  better. 

On  Board  the  Malda,  in  the  Bay  of  Bengal, 

April  17,  1901. 

The  fat  lady  is  seasick ;  the  Parsee  ladies  haven't  been 
seen  since  an  hour  after  the  ship  started ;  the  thin  young 
man  who  looked  as  if  he  intended  to  be  sick  is  holding 
out  bravely.  The  man  with  the  broken  nose  is  walking 
around  with  two  eyes  bunged  up;  the  globe-trotter  is 
busy  trying  to  find  out  what  my  business  is,  and  your 
humble  servant  is  getting  more  or  less  enjoyment  out  of 
life,  aided  by  the  knowledge  that  he  is  homeward  bound. 
Now,  as  to  the  fat  lady's  seasickness,  I  don't  know 
whether  the  sea  did  it  or  the  dogs.  She  hugged  and 
kissed  those  ugly  little  brutes  until  everybody  who  saw 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  305 

her  was  more  or  less  sick,  and,  if  it  wasn't  the  dogs  that 
made  her  sick,  it  certainly  is  a  wonder. 

The  Parsee  ladies  have  reached  the  stage  where  they 
are  afraid  the  ship  won't  sink.  At  least  I  judge  that  they 
have  from  the  noises  coming  from  their  cabin.  All  the 
cabins  on  the  Malda  open  on  the  main  saloon,  which  is 
below  the  deck,  and  is  used  as  the  dining  room,  so  when 
those  of  us  who  eat  are  at  our  meals  we  hear  pretty  nearly 
everything  that  goes  on.  You  can  imagine  the  joys  of 
tiffin,  for  instance.  The  waiter  brings  on  soup,  and  to 
the  left,  from  the  cabin  of  the  Parsee  ladies,  comes  a  series 
of  whoops  that  indicate  that  the  ladies  are  turning  them- 
selves inside  out.  Next  will  come  a  fine  dish  of  tripe, 
and  from  the  right,  where  the  fat  lady  lies,  comes  a  groan 
too  terrible  to  describe,  followed  by  a  series  of  the  most 
discomforting  noises,  and  an  "  Oh,  Lord !  poor  little 
doggy ;  yes,  it's  too  bad  mamma's  so  sick — you  too — 
who-o-o-op !  oh,  Lord,  oh.  Lord ! "  Then  silence 
until  another  course  is  served.  Oh,  I  tell  you,  it  is  im- 
mense. 

But,  to  turn  from  the  ladies  a  moment  and  take  up  the 
case  of  the  gentleman  with  a  broken  nose  and  a  fox-ter- 
rier and  bunged-up  eyes.  You  will  recall  that  he  didn't 
have  bunged-up  eyes  when  the  ship  started,  and  will,  of 
course,  conclude  that  he  met  with  an  accident.  That  con- 
clusion will  not  be  exactly  correct,  unless  you  consider 
being  eaten  in  your  sleep  (with  malice  aforethought  on 
the  part  of  the  eatee)  an  accident.  You  see,  it  is  this  way. 
The  Malda  has  the  red-ant  habit.  It  is  a  peculiarity  of 
ships  in  this  part  of  the  world  to  take  up  with  some  species 
of  the  lower  forms  of  life.  For  instance,  the  Palamcotta 
had  the  cockroach  habit.  Never  in  all  my  thirty-five 
years  of  life  have  I  seen  such  a  grand  display  of  cock- 
roaches as  there  was  on  the  Palamcotta.  Among  them 
were  the  fathers  of  the  race — roaches  that  measured  two 
inches  long  and  were  equipped  with  wings.  Of  course, 
I  wouldn't  want  to  make  the  positive  statement,  but  it  did 
seem  to  me  that  possibly  the  Palamcotta  was  the  cock- 
roach heaven  and  that  these  big  roaches  were  angels. 
Why  not?  Angels  have  wings,  and  I  never  saw  cock- 
roaches before  that  did.     What  a  happy  thought  it  is. 


306  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

isn't  it,  that  even  the  little  roaches  have  a  future  beyond 
Hooper's  Fatal  Food  ?    Who  knows  ? 

But  I  am  wandering.  I  started  to  tell  you  about  the 
man  with  the  broken  nose,  the  fox-terrier,  and  the  bunged- 
up  eyes.  As  I  said,  the  Malda  has  the  red-ant  habit. 
There  are  millions  of  them  (ants,  I  mean).  I  have  ex- 
amined them  closely.  They  have  red  bodies  forward  and 
black  bodies  aft,  and  their  legs  are  striped  alternately 
red  and  black.  Well,  it  was  hot  down  below  last  night, 
and  the  groans  of  the  fat  lady,  together  with  the  moans 
of  the  Parsee  ladies,  made  it  mighty  unpleasant  in  the 
staterooms,  so  the  man  with  the  broken  nose  and  the  fox- 
terrier  (Capt.  H.,  of  His  Majesty's  service,  if  you 
please)  decided  to  sleep  on  deck.  He  chose  for  his  rest- 
ing-place a  spot  midway  between  the  after  compass  and 
the  vegetable  box,  which  is  on  deck.  Well,  he  had  been 
asleep  about  three  hours,  when  he  woke  up.  That  is 
to  say,  when  he  tried  to  wake  up,  or,  to  be  more  accurate, 
when  he  tried  to  open  his  eyes.  They  were  glued  tight. 
He  tried  to  tear  them  open  with  his  hands,  and  he  felt 
that  they  were  like  two  fiery  balls.  Then  he  felt  of  himself 
all  over,  and  he  found  himself  truly  a  thing  of  knobs  and 
patches.  He  got  a  man  to  help  him  up  and  to  lead  him 
to  water,  and  there,  at  the  end  of  an  hour,  he  succeeded 
in  prying  one  eye  half  open. 

Through  this  half-open  optic,  the  Captain  saw  himself 
in  a  glass,  and  for  a  while  thought  of  suicide.  Truly,  he 
was  an  awful-looking  object.  If  he  had  been  a  punching- 
bag  for  the  Hon.  James  H.  Jeffries  he  couldn't  have 
looked  worse.  You  see,  the  red  ants  had  been  making  a 
meal  of  him.  The  funny  part  was  that  the  more  they  ate 
the  bigger  he  got,  and  the  more  there  was  to  eat.  I  have 
just  had  a  talk  with  the  victim,  and  he  talks  of  suing  the 
company.  The  swellings  have  gone  down  somewhat,  but 
he  is  still  far  from  eligible  for  a  beauty  show.  He  ap- 
pears to  be  a  very  nice  sort  of  fellow. 

I  wish  it  had  been  the  globe-trotter  who  had  been  eaten. 
This  globe-trotter  is  an  Englishman — one  of  the  offen- 
sive kind  who  sticks  his  nose  into  everybody's  business, 
and  he  has  been  busy  at  mine  all  day,  though  what  busi- 
ness of  his  my  business  is  I  can't  for  the  life  of  me  see. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  307 

I  am  quite  sure  that  before  the  day  is  out  he  will  ask  me 
the  question  point-blank.  If  he  does,  I  am  going  to  tell 
him  that  I  am  a  professional  millionaire. 

There,  I  knew  he  was  going  to  do  it,  but  I  didn't  have 
the  nerve  to  tell  him  the  millionaire  story.  I  had  just 
written  the  paragraph  above  when  he  came  and  sat  down 
on  the  table,  casually  casting  an  eye  on  what  I  was  writ- 
ing. He  talked  about  the  weather  and  about  Captain 
H.,  and  then  he  said,  "  By  the  way,  what  business 
did  you  say  you  were  in  ?  "  I  looked  at  him  a  minute, 
and  then  I  said,  "  I  didn't  say."  He  looked  at  me,  re- 
marked "  Oh !  "  and  walked  ofif.  Funny  how  curious 
some  people  are,  isn't  it?  Well,  I'll  stop  this  tittle-tattle, 
that  must  be  tiresome  to  you,  and  will  say  good-bye 
until  I  get  to  Calcutta.  That  will  be  to-morrow  after- 
noon. 

Calcutta,  India,  April  19,  1901. 

The  fat  lady  recovered  and  appeared  in  all  her  fatness 
with  a  homely  pup  under  each  arm.  The  Parsee  ladies 
decided  at  last  that  life  did  have  some  attraction,  and,  on 
the  whole,  they  were  happy  that  the  ship  did  not  sink. 
The  swelling  went  out  of  the  eyes  of  the  man  with  a 
broken  nose,  and  he  again  became  quite  happy.  Only 
the  globe-trotter  was  not  altogether  himself.  He  had 
not  learned  what  my  business  was. 

This  was  the  state  of  affairs  when  the  Malda  entered 
the  river  with  a  good  Irish  name  (the  Hooghly)  that 
leads  up  to  Calcutta.  Calcutta  is  120  miles  by  this  river 
from  the  Bay  of  Bengal.  Like  all  Asiatic  rivers,  the 
Hooghly  is  yellow  and  of  about  the  consistency  of  cold 
pea  soup.  The  Malda  got  to  her  dock  about  5  o'clock 
yesterday  afternoon,  and,  the  Captain  and  the  pilot  and 
all  the  officers  of  the  ship,  having  urged  me  to  go  to  the 
Grand  Hotel  because  the  food  there  was  the  best,  I  got 
into  a  hack  and  drove  to  the  Great  Eastern.  You  see,  I 
had  had  a  sample  of  the  Captain's  idea  of  good  food  all 
the  way  from  Rangoon. 

On  the  boat  I  had  been  approached  by  a  colored  gen- 
tleman who  had  assured  mc  that  he  would  take  care  of 
my  baggage,  and  after  I  had  paid  5  rupees  duty  he  did 


308  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

take  charge.  After  I  got  to  the  hotel  this  same  colored 
gentleman  came  to  me  and  told  me  he  had  decided  to  take 
me  as  his  master  during  my  stay  in  Calcutta.  All  I  had 
to  do  was  to  pay  him  i  rupee  a  day,  and  he  would  do  the 
rest.  Then  he  went  to  work,  opening  my  bags  and  tak- 
ing out  my  clothes  and  brushing  them.  Of  course  I  was 
helpless.  His  name  is  Abdul  Hamid.  I  tried  to  argue  the 
matter  with  him,  assuring  him  that  I  wasn't  accustomed 
to  a  retinue  of  servants,  but  he  only  smiled  in  a  pitying 
sort  of  a  way,  making  me  feel  a  good  deal  like  the  sum  I 
am  to  pay  him  daily — 32  cents. 

Abdul  Hamid  had  no  more  than  decided  to  do  me 
the  favor  of  employing  me  as  his  master  when  he  assured 
me  that  I  must  have  a  punka  coolie.  I  think  I  have  told 
you  about  punkas.  They  are  everywhere  in  the  East. 
They  hang  from  the  ceilings,  and  are  pulled  backward 
and  forward  by  coolies  attached  to  ropes,  and,  of  course, 
they  keep  the  air  circulating  and  a  breeze  in  the  room. 
The  one  in  my  room  hangs  over  the  bed.  Abdul  told  me 
that  I  had  to  have  a  day  coolie  and  a  night  coolie,  the  day 
man  to  get  6  cents  a  day  and  the  night  man  7  cents  a  night. 
Each  of  them  works  when  the  room  is  occupied,  and  the 
extra  pay  for  the  night  man  is  given  because  a  person  oc- 
cupies his  room  at  night  more  than  he  does  in  the  daytime. 
For  instance,  when  the  person  is  sleeping  there  is  a  steady 
pull  of  eight  hours  for  the  punka  coolie.  Of  course  I  had 
to  do  what  Abdul  told  me,  and  I  got  a  day  coolie  and  a 
night  coolie.  I  must  say  I  never  got  so  much  satisfaction 
crt  of  13  cents  before.  Think  of  being  fanned  continu- 
ously, even  when  you  sleep,  and  the  heat  here  is  so  op- 
pressive that  it  is  simply  impossible  to  get  along  without  it. 

Well,  at  7  o'clock  last  night  Abdul  told  me  it  was  time 
to  dress  for  dinner,  and  then  I  found  that  he  had  laid  out 
all  my  dinner  clothes,  and  was  waiting  to  assist  me  to  get 
into  them.  Ah,  I  can  tell  you,  Abdul  is  a  fine  nigger.  At 
dinner  he  stood  behind  my  chair  and  bossed  the  other 
servants  around.  It  was  worth  a  rupee  a  day  to  hear  him 
do  that.  Being  so  late  in  the  afternoon  it  was  not  possible 
for  me  to  do  anything  in  a  business  way  before  to-day. 
Abdul  told  me  so  last  night.  I  had  a  good  sleep,  thanks 
to  the  ever-swinging  punka. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  309 

This  morning  The  Englishman  and  The  Statesman  an- 
nounce my  arrival  thus :  "  Mr.  W.  J.  ChamberUn,  special 
correspondent  of  the  The  York  Sun,  has  arrived  in  Cal- 
cutta, on  his  way  home  to  America,  after  a  prolonged  so- 
journ in  the  Far  East.  Mr.  ChamberUn  comes  direct 
from  Peking."  These  newspaper  people  are  a  great  peo- 
ple for  finding  out  things,  aren't  they?  I  hadn't  told  a 
soul  who  I  was  or  where  I  came  from.  I  guess  it  must 
have  been  Abdul.  He  found  out  probably  when  he 
searched  my  bags  and  trunks.  There  is  no  question  about 
it,  Abdul  is  a  great  man. 

I  went  around  to  see  the  newspaper  people  to-day,  and 
got  more  or  less  encouragement,  but  I  don't  know  yet 
whether  I  shall  be  able  to  accomplish  what  I  want.  I 
haven't  seen  enough  of  Calcutta  yet  to  tell  you  anything 
about  it,  so  I'll  say  good-bye  without  further  comment. 

Calcutta,  April  20,  1901. 

Calcutta  is  hot  and  uncomfortable  and  dirty  and  bad- 
smelling.  That  about  sums  the  thing  up,  I  think.  The 
plague  is  rampant  here.  The  natives  are  dirtier  than  the 
Chinese  and  are  not  so  clever,  but  they  all  think  they  are 
better  than  white  folks,  so  you  can  imagine  what  kind  of 
folks  they  are.  The  town  is  big.  It  has  more  than  a 
million  and  a  half  of  people  in  it.  The  native  city,  which 
is  indescribably  filthy,  is  built  all  around  that  part  of  the 
city  occupied  by  the  whites.  There  is  a  horse-car  line. 
Imagine  horse-cars  with  the  thermometer  at  100  in  the 
shade !  Very  few  people  travel  in  them,  the  natives  using 
them  almost  exclusively. 

There  is  one  thing  about  the  Indian  native — he  never 
bothers  a  tailor.  His  dress  is  a  winding  sheet,  tucked  in 
here  and  there  to  hold  it  in  place.  His  hat  is  another 
winding  sheet,  which  I  have  already  told  you  about.  His, 
and  particularly  her,  favorite  attitude  is  a  squat.  They 
sit  on  the  ground,  their  feet  close  to  their  seats  and  their 
knees  tucked  under  their  arms.  It  is  a  position  the  ordi- 
nary individual  couldn't  get  into  if  he  tried  for  a  week, 
but  it  is  apparently  the  acme  of  comfort  to  these  people, 
and  they  will  sit  that  way  hours  at  a  time.  They  are  not 
nearly  as  hard-working  people  as  the  Chinese,  nor  are 


310  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

they  as  intelligent.  I  mean  now,  of  course,  the  coolie 
class.  The  higher-class  people  are  extraordinarily  in- 
telligent. 

Last  night  I  dined  with  B.,  the  editor  of  The  English- 
man, which  is  one  of  the  principal  papers  in  the  city,  and 
talked  over  plans  with  him.  His  paper,  unfortunately, 
is  tied  up  with  the  opposition  on  account  of  a  stock 
interest  on  the  part  of  the  proprietor,  and  so  I  can't  do 
anything  with  him.  But  I  got  some  quite  valuable  tips 
from  him. 

Of  course  you  want  to  know  all  about  the  news  of  Cal- 
cutta, so  I  take  pleasure  to-day  in  sending  you  three  of 
the  leading  journals.  To  read  them  you  stand  on  your 
head  and  kick  your  heels  together.  I  wouldn't  advise  you 
to  sit  up  nights  reading  them.  I  thought  you  and  the 
children  might  want  to  see  what  sort  of  papers  Calcutta 
has.  Well,  I  must  close  this  letter  at  once.  I  have  an 
appointment  in  half  an  hour  that  I  must  keep.  It  is  with 
The  Statesmen  people. 

Calcutta,  April  21,  1901. 
I  finished  up  in  Calcutta  this  afternoon.  I  am  all 
packed,  and  at  6  o'clock  I  am  off  to  Allahabad,  which  is 
in  the  center  of  India.  I'll  get  there,  if  I  have  good  luck, 
at  14.22  o'clock  to-morrow.  That  would  be  4  o'clock 
and  22  minutes  in  the  United  States.  Out  here  they  run 
the  whole  twenty-four  hours  out  in  a  stretch,  beginning 
a  midnight.  Between  midnight  and  i  o'clock  it  is  o 
o'clock.  Then  at  i  o'clock  it  starts,  and  at  11  o'clock  at 
night  it  is  23  o'clock.  Just  another  of  those  contrary 
things  you  find  out  in  the  East,  you  know.  I  shall  be  at 
Allahabad  only  a  day  or  so,  and  then  I'll  go  on  to  Bom- 
bay, where  I'll  get  a  steamer  straight  for  Marseilles. 
Very  likely  it  will  be  the  steamer  that  these  letters  go  on, 
so  when  you  get  them  I'll  be  just  about  starting  home 
from  Europe  on  the  last  week  of  my  journey  around  the 
world. 

Watson's  Esplanade  Hotel, 

Bombay,  April  25,  1901. 
As  you  will  see  by  the  date  of  this  letter,  I  have  crossed 
India,  and,  if  I  have  good  luck  to-day  and  to-morrow. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  811 

and  see  the  people  I  want  to  see,  I  shall  be  ready  to  sail 
for  Marseilles  on  Saturday.  France — Great  Scott,  that's 
only  seven  days  from  Brooklyn !  It  is  about  fifteen  days 
from  here  to  Marseilles,  and  I  shall  have  to  change 
steamers  at  Aden.  I  will  take  a  steamer  from  Australia 
there. 

I  haven't  written  you  since  Sunday,  the  day  that  I  left 
Calcutta.  The  reason  is  that  Indian  railroad  trains 
are  not  the  luxurious  palaces  we  have  in  America,  and  I 
have  been  in  Indian  railroad  trains  almost  constantly 
since  I  left  Calcutta  at  7  o'clock  Sunday  night.  People 
had  told  me  that  the  trains  were  always  crowded,  and 
that  I'd  probably  have  an  awful  time.  But  people  are  not 
always  to  be  trusted.  I  had  purchased  a  first-class  ticket, 
and  I  found  myself  a  lone  first-class  passenger,  with  a 
compartment  all  to  myself. 

Indian  railroad  cars  are  modeled  after  the  English  cars. 
Each  one  contains  three  compartments,  each  compart- 
ment holding  six  people.  There  are  two  seats,  each  about 
the  length  of  a  man.  They  run  lengthwise.  Over  them 
are  two  padded  boards  that  let  down.  At  night  two  of  the 
passengers  grab  the  seats,  two  the  padded  boards,  and 
the  other  two  take  the  floor.  Everybody  carries  bedding 
with  him.  Being  alone,  I  had  the  choice,  and  I  took  one 
of  the  seats  and  passed  about  as  uncomfortable  a  night 
on  it  as  a  man  could  possibly  pass. 

There  is  one  other  thing  I  want  to  tell  you  about  the 
cars.  They  have  a  device  for  cooling  that  is  unique.  It 
is  hotter  than  mustard  in  India,  you  know,  and  they  have 
to  do  all  sorts  of  things  to  keep  cool.  This  device  that  I 
speak  of  is  a  false  window.  Instead  of  glass  it  is  made  of 
the  twigs  of  some  fragrant  plant,  and,  by  turning  a  little 
cock,  water  from  a  tank  on  the  roof  leaks  down  and  keeps 
these  twigs  wet.  Outside  the  window  there  is  a  shield 
that  turns  out  a  bit,  and  catches  the  wind  made  by  the 
forward  motion  of  the  train.  The  water  cools  the  wind, 
the  twigs  give  it  an  aromatic  smell,  and  you  have  a  cool 
breeze  as  long  as  the  water  lasts.  Twice  between  Cal- 
cutta and  Allahabad  all  the  passengers  had  to  get  out  of 
the  train  and  be  examined  by  a  doctor  to  see  if  they  had 
the  plague.     Calcutta,  you  know,  has  hundreds  of  cases 


312  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

all  the  time,  and  everybody  from  there  is  under  suspicion. 
So  has  Bombay.  We  had  no  cases  in  the  train,  and  were 
passed.    We  got  to  Allahabad  Monday  noon. 

Now,  I  thought  Calcutta  was  hot,  but  Allahabad  could 
give  it  cards  and  spades  and  beat  it.  It  was  simply  blis- 
tering. The  town  is  a  tremendous  native  settlement,  and 
about  the  only  white  people  in  it  are  connected  with  the 
British  Government.  I  stopped  at  Kellner's  Retirement 
Rooms,  over  the  depot,  and  started  right  out  to  get  my 
work  done.  While  the  inhabitants  are  almost  all  natives, 
the  biggest  and  most  important  paper  in  India  is  printed 
there.  I  told  the  carriage  man  to  drive  me  to  the  office, 
and  he  took  me  all  over  Allahabad,  finally  driving  into 
what  looked  to  me  like  immense  private  grounds.  I 
stopped  him  and  told  him  I  didn't  want  to  call  on  the 
Governor — I  simply  wanted  to  go  to  the  office  of  The 
Pioneer.  He  talked  Punjab  at  me,  and  I  let  him  go  on 
to  a  beautiful  house  in  the  center  of  the  grounds.  It  was 
the  office  of  The  Pioneer.  Every  window  and  every  en- 
trance was  shielded  by  a  screen  of  the  same  sort  of  twigs 
that  the  railroad  cooler  was  made  of,  and  nine  or  ten 
naked  coolies  were  busy  tossing  water  on  them.  I  went 
inside,  and  really^  after  the  heat  outside,  the  place  felt 
like  an  ice-box.  It  was  a  most  grateful  change,  I  can 
assure  you. 

I  found  The  Pioneer  men  a  fine  lot  of  people.  The 
editor  said  that  his  Calcutta  man  had  telegraphed  him 
that  I  had  arrived  in  India,  and  he  had  told  him  to  see 
me  and  have  a  talk  with  me.  Nothing  would  do  but  I 
must  come  and  have  dinner  with  him  that  evening,  etc., 
and  so  on.  I  spent  a  very  pleasant  hour  with  them.  I 
had  to  buy  a  pair  of  shoes,  and  when  I  left  the  newspa- 
per office  I  asked  the  driver  to  take  me  to  a  shoe  store. 
He  drove  me  all  around  Allahabad  again,  and  then  into 
another  immense  private  estate  that  I  thought  must  surely 
be  a  Rajah's  palace.  But  it  wasn't.  It  was  just  a  shoe 
store.  I  found  that  all  the  shops  in  Allabahad  were 
similarly  housed  and  surrounded  by  big  lawns  and  gar- 
dens, and  that  each  one  kept  from  ten  to  twenty  coolies 
throwing  water  on  twig  screens  to  keep  the  place  cool. 

Now,    I    don't   know    much    else   to   tell    you    about 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  313 

the  place — at  least  that  I  can  put  in  a  letter.  The  Indian 
natives  are  a  dirty,  miserable  lot — worse  than  the 
Chinese.  They  are  most  of  them  beggars.  I  mean  none 
of  them  is  ashamed  to  beg.  The  popidar  means  of  loco- 
motion in  the  interior  is  a  two-wheeled  cart,  like  a  'rick- 
sha, but  heavily  built,  with  an  umbrella  for  a  top,  and 
drawn  by  a  stunted  horse  instead  of  a  man.  There  are  no 
barber  shops.  The  barbers  all  carry  their  shops  under 
their  arms,  and  if  you  need  a  shave  they  hold  you  up 
and  tell  you  so.  If  you  agree  with  them  they  shave  you 
on  the  spot  without  further  ado.  At  every  railroad  sta- 
tion barbers  tell  you  that  you  want  a  shave,  and  they  will 
shave  you  while  the  train  waits — that  is,  in  two  or  three 
minutes.  At  every  station  there  are  beggars  who  stand 
off  and  call  to  you.    They  are  usually  children. 

I  have  heard  many  Englishmen  talk  of  the  evils  of  the 
tipping  system  in  America,  but  Heaven  forbid  that  it 
should  ever  become  so  bad  there  as  it  is  here.  If  you  as 
much  as  look  at  a  native,  he  holds  out  his  hand  to  you, 
palm  up.  My  hotel  bill  at  Allahabad  was  6  rupees.  I 
thought  I  was  getting  off  easily.  I  had  six  pieces  of 
baggage.  Six  coolies  came,  and  each  took  one  piece.  As 
I  was  starting  for  a  train  I  saw  a  crowd  drawn  up  by  my 
door.     I  asked  the  room-boy,  "  Who  are  these  people  ?  " 

He  said :  "  They  wish  your  honor  a  very  pleasant 
journey." 

I  said  "  Damn  !  " 

"  This,"  said  he,  pointing  to  the  man  on  the  end  of  the 
line,  "  is  the  water-boy  who  brought  the  water  for  Your 
Honor's  bath." 

"  Oh,"  said  I,  and  a  half-rupee  left  me. 

"  This,"  said  the  room-boy,  "  is  the  man  who  pulled  the 
punka  for  Your  Honor  yesterday." 

"  Oh,"  said  I  again,  and  another  half-rupee  left  me. 

"  This,"  said  the  room-boy,  "  is  the  man  who  pulled 
the  punka  while  Your  Honor  slept." 

I  groaned  in  spirit,  and  parted  with  eight  annas 
more. 

"  This,"  said  the  room-boy,  "  is  the  man  who  whitened 
Your  Honor's  shoes." 

Another  half-rupee. 


314  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

"  This,"  said  the  room-boy^  "  is  the  man  who  brought 
lemonade  to  Your  Honor." 

Heavens,  would  it  never  stop?  Another  half-rupee 
disappeared. 

"  This,"  said  the  room-boy,  "  is  the  man  who  pulled 
the  punka  for  Your  Honor  when  he  ate  his  dinner,  and 
this  one  when  he  ate  his  breakfast." 

Two  more  half-rupees. 

"  This,"  said  the  room-boy,  "  is  Your  Honor's  ser- 
vant who  called  the  carriage." 

"  Good  Lord !  "  I  thought,  and  I  parted  with  another, 

"  This,"  said  the  room-boy,  "  is  the  man  who  brought 
Your  Honor  ice." 

Another  half-rupee. 

"  This,"  said  the  room-boy,  "  is  the  man  who  waited 
on  Your  Honor  at  table." 

I  breathed  hard,  and  said,  "  Thank  Heaven,  he  is  the 
last." 

"  This,"  began  the  room-boy  again,  but,  with  a  wild 
cry  I  fled,  my  pockets  empty,  and  as  I  ran  I  heard  a  wail, 
"  Your  Honor  has  forgotten  me." 

Oh,  it  was  awful.  I  thought  I  had  escaped.  But  there 
at  the  station,  waiting  by  the  car,  were  the  six  coolies  who 
had  carried  my  baggage,  each  with  outstretched  palm. 
The  train  was  just  starting.  I  threw  them  all  the  money 
I  had  left,  limped  into  the  compartment  and  shut  and 
locked  the  door,  and,  as  we  pulled  out  of  the  station,  I 
saw  that  room-boy  coming  on  the  wings  of  the  wind  and 
h.  "■^d  the  plaintive  wail,  "Your  Honor  has  forgotten 
mc !  "  I  crawled  under  the  seat  and  kept  concealed  until 
Allahabad  was  out  of  sight.  Heaven  forbid  that  I  should 
ever  see  the  place  again. 

I  got  to  Bombay  last  night  and  haven't  seen  enough 
of  the  town  to  tell  you  anything  about  it  yet. 

Watson's  Esplanade  Hotel, 

Bombay,  April  26,  1901. 

Let  me  see.     When  I  left  you  yesterday  I  was  under  a 

seat  in  the  Bombay  mail,  just  pulling  out  of  Allahabad, 

and  in  my  ears  was  ringing  the  plaintive  wail,  "  Your 

Honor  has   forgotten  me !  "     It  was  like  a  nightmare. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  315 

Never  shall  I  forget  Allahabad.  My  trip  to  Bombay  was 
uneventful  except  for  another  hold-up  by  a  doctor,  who 
wanted  to  see  if  I  had  the  plague  yet.  I  didn't  have  it, 
and  I  came  on  all  right,  but  with  that  cry,  "  Your  Honor 
has  forgotten  me !  "  still  ringing  in  my  ears.  As  if  I  could 
ever  forget  him ! 

Bombay  is  a  cleaner,  better,  and  I  should  say,  from  what 
I  have  seen  of  it,  a  much  more  progressive  city  than  Cal- 
cutta. Everybody  wears  a  pith  or  a  cork  helmet  here. 
Even  the  horses  are  fitted  with  them.  It  looks  funny  to 
see  a  team  of  horses  drawing  a  fashionable  carriage  go 
spinning  along,  a  big  white  helmet  on  the  head  of  each. 
The  fashion  is  not  confined  to  the  private  horses.  Even 
the  street-car  plugs  wear  white  helmets.  The  natives 
wear  their  heads  done  up  in  a  hundred  yards  of  white 
sheeting,  more  or  less.  I  have  already  told  you  how  they 
wrap  it.  When  I  see  them  I  can't  help  thinking  how 
much  better  they  would  look  if  they  sort  of  spread  the 
hundred  yards  around  a  little  more,  so  that  it  would  cover 
their  bodies.  You  see,  it  strikes  you  as  a  little  strange 
to  see  a  hat  made  of  a  hundred  yards  of  stuff,  and  clothes 
of  something  less  than  one  yard.  It  is  not  giving  the 
body  a  fair  deal.  You  will  remember  some  years  ago  the 
ladies  in  the  United  States  used  to  wear  a  bit  of  court- 
plaster  on  one  cheek.  That  was  to  set  off  their  com- 
plexions, I  think  you  told  me.  Well,  it  strikes  me  that 
that  must  be  what  the  natives  of  India  wear  clothes  for. 
Their  total  apparel,  exclusive  of  the  hundred-yard  hat, 
covers  about  as  much  of  their  skin,  proportionately,  as 
the  bit  of  court-plaster  covers  the  ladies'  faces.  Being 
white,  it  certainly  sets  off  their  complexions  with  startling 
effectiveness. 

By  the  way,  there  are  some  things  I  think  I  forgot  to 
tell  you  about  the  railroad.  None  of  the  cars  is  fitted 
with  tanks  for  drinking  water.  But  when  the  train  stops 
natives  run  along  the  car  windows  selling  soda  water, 
lemonade,  and  ginger-pop  at  2  annas  a  bottle,  and  other 
natives  have  plain  water  at  i  anna  a  pint.  They  carry  the 
plain  water  in  pigskins.  The  whole  hide  of  a  pig  is  taken 
and  sewed  up.  It  is  practically  water-tight.  One  of  the 
legs  is  left  unsewed,  and  this  is  the  spigot  through  which' 


316  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

the  water  is  served.  As  for  the  water  itself,  I  must  con- 
fess I  don't  know  anything  about  it.  I  haven't  had  a 
drink  of  plain  water  since  I  left  San  Francisco  eight 
months  or  more  ago.  It  has  always  been  bottled  water 
of  some  kind.  I  have  got  a  hankering,  now,  for  just 
plain  water,  but  I  won't  chance  it  until  I  get  back  home 
where  I  can  be  sure  of  what  I  am  drinking. 

I  am  having  some  trouble  with  one  of  my  eyes  at  the 
present  time.  I  can't  imagine  what  it  is  unless  that  room- 
boy  at  Allahabad  put  a  hoodoo  on  it  with  his  "  Your 
Honor  has  forgotten  me!  "  It  (the  eye,  I  mean)  is  very 
bloodshot,  and  can't  stand  the  light,  so  I  am  wearing 
dark  glasses.  I  am  going  to  see  a  doctor  about  it  this 
morning.  I  don't  think  it  is  anything  more  serious  than 
a  cold.  I  don't  mind  wearing  the  glasses  except  that 
they  make  me  look  like  a  tourist,  and  that  is  expensive. 
The  whole  population  of  India  is  laying  for  tourists,  and 
when  they  get  hold  of  one  they  bleed  him.  Sometimes  I 
think  they  must  have  taken  me  for  a  tourist  at  Allahabad. 
Well,  I'll  wind  up  this  fol-de-rol  and  go  to  see  the 
doctor. 

Watson's  Esplanade  Hotel, 

Bombay,  April  27,  1901. 
It  is  sailing  day  again.  Surely  this  is  a  flying  sort  of  an 
existence  that  I  am  leading.  I  finished  up  my  business 
in  Bombay  last  night,  and  the  Peninsular,  of  the  P.  and  O. 
line,  sails  at  i  o'clock.  I  am  a  passenger  on  her,  bound 
for  Aden,  where  I  change  to  the  Australia,  of  the  Aus- 
tralian line,  and  go  on  through  the  Suez  Canal  and  the 
Red  Sea  to  Marseilles.  I  am  due  there  May  12,  which  is 
the  day  this  letter  is  due  in  London,  and  will  probably 
start  for  America  about  the  time  you  get  this.  I'll  be  in 
London,  probably,  booking  my  passage  home  to  Brook- 
lyn, and  a  week  later  I'll  see  you.  I  just  grabbed  my  hat 
and  threw  it  in  the  air  when  I  wrote  that.  As  on  all 
sailing  days,  I  am  busy.  I'll  cut  this  short  right  here.  Of 
course  I'll  write  you  on  the  journey. 

London,  W.  C,  Thursday,  June  15,  1901. 
Still  in  London,  and  still  hustling,  and  now  I've  a  new 
job  that  will  take  me  another  week  and  perhaps  ten  days. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  317 

The  Laffan  service  is  to  be  extended  to  Denmark,  Nor- 
way, and  Sweden,  and  I  am  going  up  there  on  a  third  trip 
to  make  arrangements,  leaving  London  Monday  night 
and  doing  my  level  best  to  get  back  in  time  to  take  Satur- 
day's steamer.  It  will  be  an  awful  hustle,  but  I  think 
with  the  hope  of  seeing  you  a  week  sooner,  as  an  under- 
current, I  can  do  it.     You  know  how  hard  I'll  try. 

You've  heard  of  the  land  of  the  "  Midnight  Sun." 
Well,  that's  Denmark,  Norway,  Sweden,  and  I'll  be  there 
the  longest  day  of  the  year,  so  that  I  shall  see  the  sun 
shining  at  midnight,  just  as  brightly  as  it  does  at  noon- 
day. While  I  am  burning  up  to  get  home,  I'm  awfully 
glad  to  have  the  chance  to  see  that  part  of  the  world,  that 
I  shall  probably  never  have  an  opportunity  to  see  again. 

Oh,  you  can't  imagine  the  fund  of  stories  that  I  have  to 
tell  you  about  the  strange  things  and  strange  people  I 
have  seen.  I  don't  believe  it  will  be  possible  to  be  dull 
for  a  year  at  least.  While  I'm  impressed  with  every- 
thing that  I  see,  the  old  impression  that  I  told  you  of  is 
stronger  every  day ;  home  is  best,  America  is  grander  and 

better  than  all  these,  and Street  is  the  best 

spot  in  all  America  for  me.  How  I  wish  I  were  with  you 
and  the  babies  now  or  that  you  were  here  with  me,  seeing 
more  of  the  world  every  day.  It's  hard  to  be  separated 
for  so  long  a  time,  but  it  will  be  all  for  the  best  in  the 
end,  for  the  knowledge  of  the  world  that  I  am  gaining 
now  must  be  of  cash  value  to  us  both  in  the  future. 

This  letter  is  a  short  one,  but  I've  so  many  things  to 
do  that  I  can't  make  it  longer  now.  I'll  telegraph  you 
the  day  I  get  back  from  the  "  Land  of  the  Midnight  Sun," 
and  tell  you  the  day  I  shall  sail  for  home.  There  won't 
be  any  more  delay,  I'm  certain.  Kiss  and  hug  the  babies 
for  me  and  tell  them  how  anxious  I  am  to  see  them  again. 

Hotel  D'Angleterre,  Copenhagen. 

KjEBENHAVN,  June  19,  1901. 
I  have  just  time  for  a  brief  note  before  I  am  off  to 
catch  the  train  for  Stockholm,  which  is  in  Sweden.  What 
I  have  to  tell  you  is,  most  of  it,  of  the  kind  that  I  am  sav- 
ing up  to  retail  to  you  when  I  get  home,  but  just  a  brief 
catalogue  won't  spoil  it.    I  left  London  Sunday;  was  in 


318  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

Berlin  Monday,  Hamburg  yesterday,  and  got  here  to 
Copenhagen  this  morning.  I  have  been  hustUng  all  day. 
I  have  seen  a  good  deal  of  the  city,  and  now  I'm  off.  A 
thousand  times  yesterday  I  wished  that  you  were  with  me. 
Hamburg  is  simply  a  beautiful  city.  I  had  about  ten 
hours  there  with  nothing  to  do,  and  I  put  it  in  sight-see- 
ing. You  know  that  is  not  my  line  as  a  rule,  but  I 
really  think  it  was  one  of  the  most  enjoyable  days  that  I 
have  ever  spent,  and  I  couldn't  help  feeling  mean  because 
I  didn't  have  you  there  to  enjoy  it  with  me. 

I  had  dinner  out  at  a  great  German  garden,  where 
there  was  an  orchestra  of  a  hundred  pieces,  and  it  played 
selections  from  Wagner  all  the  evening.  I  did  not  leave 
there  until  lo  o'clock  at  night.  But  it  was  broad  daylight 
still.  You  see,  the  place  is  so  far  north  that  the  days  are 
very  long,  and  there  is  scarcely  any  night  at  this  season 
of  the  year.  Copenhagen  is  neither  so  beautiful  nor  so 
easy  to  get  to  as  Hamburg.  I  left  Hamburg  at  ii  o'clock 
last  night  and  traveled  twenty-four  hours  by  train,  first, 
until  2  o'clock  in  the  morning,  then  by  boat  across  the 
Baltic  Sea  until  7  o'clock,  and  then  by  train  again.  I  am 
about  dead  for  want  of  sleep,  I  can  tell  you.  Stockholm, 
where  I  go  from  here,  is  still  farther  north,  and  then  I 
go  straight  north  again  to  Lapland,  across  the  Arctic 
Circle,  where  I  will  satisfy  my  curiosity  about  the  mid- 
night sun,  in  the  land  where  there  is  no  night  half  the 
year  and  no  day  the  other  half.  Maybe  it  will  ajnuse  the 
children  to  take  their  geographies  and  look  up  some  of 
the  places  their  Pop  is  visiting,  though  they  will  have 
to  do  it  pretty  quickly  after  they  get  this  letter,  for  I 
shall  be  home  myself  almost  as  soon. 

Copenhagen,  June  26,  1901. 
Here  I  am  back  at  Copenhagen  again ;  I  have  traveled 
all  over  Denmark,  Sweden,  and  Norway,  and  I  think  I 
have  finished  my  work  now,  and  am  off  for  home.  I 
got  in  here  so  late  this  evening  that  I  missed  the  Hook 
of  Holland,  and  I  have  to  wait  over  until  noon  to-morrow. 
It's  more  serious  than  a  day's  delay,  for  it  makes  me  miss 
Saturday's  steamer,  and  I  cannot  get  away  before 
Wednesday.     To-morrow's  train   lands  me   in   London 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  319 

Saturday  morning  at  just  about  the  time  the  steamer  on 
which  I  intended  going  home  sails  from  Liverpool,  and 
catching  it  is  out  of  the  question, 

I  have  wished  a  thousand  times  that  you  were  along  on 
this  trip.  The  three  countries  that  I  have  seen  are  sim- 
ply beautiful.  From  Copenhagen,  where  I  was  when  I 
wrote  you  last,  I  went  to  Stockholm,  in  Sweden.  It  is 
called  the  Venice  of  the  North,  and  it  is  certainly  a  most 
beautiful  city.  I  had  a  whole  day  there,  and  after  seeing 
the  men  I  wanted  to  see,  I  took  a  carriage  and  drove 
around  the  city.  I  visited  the  king's  palace  among  other 
things. 

That  night  I  started  for  the  "  Midnight  Sun."  I  found 
I  would  not  have  time  to  see  the  actual  midnight  sun,  so  I 
went  as  near  it  as  time  would  allow.  That  was  Drontheim, 
which  is  in  the  north  of  Norway.  On  the  way  up  I  had  to 
travel  second-class ;  the  railroad  company  sold  me  what 
they  called  a  first-class  berth,  and  I  found  it  was  in  the 
meanest  sort  of  a  little  room  with  three  other  men.  Then 
maybe  I  wasn't  mad  clear  through.  I  had  an  upper 
berth,  too,  and  that  made  me  still  more  angry ;  and,  in  ad- 
dition to  that,  one  of  the  three  men  in  with  me  was  a 
consumptive,  and  that  made  me  nervous.  Well,  I  did  a 
heap  of  kicking  to  the  conductor,  a  big  Swede,  who  didn't 
understand  a  word  of  it.  After  a  while  I  made  him  un- 
derstand that  I  had  to  have  a  lower  berth,  and  then  one 
of  the  three  men  in  the  car  said  that  he  preferred  an  upper 
to  a  lower,  and  asked  the  privilege  of  exchanging  with 
me ;  of  course  I  was  agreeable.  I  did  not  learn  until  the 
next  morning  that  the  obliging  man  was  Prince  Bema- 
dotte,  the  son  of  the  king.  Of  course  I  couldn't  help  then 
but  be  satisfied.  We  became  quite  well  acquainted.  I 
told  him  a  lot  of  Chinese  stories,  and  he  told  me  a  lot  of 
Swedish  ones.  It  was  when  he  was  leaving  me  that  he 
held  out  his  hand,  and  said,  "  Well,  I  hope  that  some  time 
you  will  think  of  Prince  Bernadotte."  Well,  you  could 
have  knocked  me  over  with  a  feather ;  but  I  braced  up  and 
told  him  I  hoped  to  see  him  in  America  some  day.  I  got 
"  chummy  "  then  with  another  of  my  fellow  travelers,  who 
spoke  a  little  English,  and  he  told  me  the  story  of  the 
Prince^  who  is  the  second  son  of  the  king.    He  fell  in 


320  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

love  with  one  of  his  mother's  maids-in-waiting,  and,  in 
order  to  marry  her,  he  had  to  give  up  his  title  to  the 
throne.  He  did  it.  Since  then  he  has  been  doing  a  lot 
of  missionary  work ;  he  was  on  his  way  this  trip  to  preach 
to  the  Laplanders. 

My  second  friend,  the  man  who  told  me  all  of  this,  was 
a  quiet,  unassuming  sort  of  man,  and  I  didn't  think  he 
was  anybody  in  particular,  when,  lo  and  behold,  the  first 
station  from  Drontheim,  a  lot  of  Norwegians  came  on 
board  and  greeted  him,  and  when  the  train  reached  Dron- 
theim there  was  a  brass  band  at  the  station.  This  man 
was  put  at  the  head  of  the  procession  and  he  rushed  off. 
I  found  out  that  he  was  a  big  member  of  the  Swedish 
parliament.  So,  you  see,  I  had  very  distinguished  travel- 
ing companions. 

We  got  to  this  Norwegian  town  at  9  o'clock  in  the  even- 
ing. I  sat  up  until  11.30.  Then  the  sun  went  down. 
I  sat  up  until  12.30  and  it  rose  again.  In  the  intervening 
hour  I  read  papers  by  daylight ;  what  do  you  think  of 
that?  It  never  grew  any  darker  than  it  is  at  this  season 
of  the  year  in  broad  day  at  7  o'clock.  It  was  a  queer  sight. 
I  went  to  bed  at  3  o'clock  in  the  morning  with  the  sun 
shining  as  brightly  as  it  does  at  home  at  midday. 

From  Drontheim  I  went  on  to  Christiania,  in  Norway; 
that  is  the  capital.  I  got  there  Sunday,  and  could  do  no 
business,  so  I  rested.  It  was  practically  the  first  rest  that 
I  had  had  since  I  left  London.  Christiania  is  the  capital 
of  Norway.  I  visited  the  royal  palace  there,  too.  Then  I 
went  out  on  Monday  and  did  what  business  I  had  come  to 
do  and  started  on  again,  back  to  Denmark,  and  here  I  am. 
Since  I  left  London,  I  have  visited  Holland,  Germany, 
and  Denmark,  Norway,  and  Sweden.  Pretty  good,  isn't 
it,  for  ten  days?  Thank  the  Lord,  now  I'm  coming  home, 
home,  home,  and  I  hope  to  stay  a  while.  Oh,  I've  got  so 
much  to  tell  you;  I'm  just  brimming  over  with  things 
that  I  have  seen  and  heard.  How  I  wish  that  I  were  with 
you  now,  that  I  could  begin,  or,  better  still,  that  you  were 
with  me  here.  I  shall  never  be  quite  happy  until  I  can 
bring  you  to  Europe  and  show  you  around;  let's  hope 
that  it  will  be  soon.  Well,  it's  midnight,  and  Fm  off  to 
bed.    Good-bye,  until  I  see  you  ten  days  hence, 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  321 

The  New  York  Sun  Office,  London,  W.  C, 

July  2,  1901. 

I  got  back  from  the  trip  to  Denmark,  Norway,  and 
Sweden  on  Saturday  morning,  and  have  been  so  busy 
since  that  there  has  not  been  time  to  write.  Of  course 
I  was  too  late  to  catch  Saturday's  boat,  and,  even  if  I 
had  been  in  time,  business  would  not  have  permitted.  I 
expected  to  sail  to-morrow  on  the  Majestic  of  the  White 
Star  line,  which  will  take  this  letter,  but  she  is  full  up, 
so  it  will  be  impossible  for  me  to  get  away  before  Satur- 
day, when  I'll  find  room,  I  think,  on  the  St.  Louis.  Mr. 
L.  is  going  home  on  her,  and  I'll  travel  with  him. 

You  can't  imagine  how  happy  I  shall  be  when  I  once 
get  started  on  the  last  leg  of  this  journey  around  the 
world.  I  am  just  longing  to  be  with  you  all  again.  I 
am  more  homesick  than  ever  I  was  before  in  all  my  life, 
and  that  is  saying  a  good  deal,  I  can  tell  you.  My  stay 
in  Europe  has  been  most  delightful.  Everything  has 
been  done  by  my  friends  here  that  could  be  done  to  make 
it  happy  and  I  have  enjoyed  it,  but  there  hasn't  been  a 
day  when  I  have  not  wished  very  very  hard  that  I  could 
get  away,  or  that  I  had  you  with  me  to  help  enjoy  it. 
Impossible  wishes — I'm  full  of  them,  am  I  not?  With 
H.  R.'s  family  I  have  incurred  social  obligations  that  I 
don't  believe  we  shall  ever  be  able  to  repay,  but  we'll  do 
our  best  when  they  come  to  America.  The  stay  here  has 
done  me  an  immense  amount  of  good,  for  while  I  have 
had  work  all  the  time,  it  has  been  a  practical  rest  for  me, 
and  my  nerves,  which  were  in  a  bad  condition  when  I 
landed,  are  ten  times  better.  Think  of  me  talking  about 
nerves,  will  you?  Nevertheless,  after  the  work  and  the 
hardships  of  China  I  had  a  more  active  set  of  them  than 
even  you  have  ever  had,  my  sweetheart.  They've  calmed 
down  now,  and  I  feel  as  fit  as  ever  I  did  in  my  life. 

I  have  spent  this  whole  morning  thinking  of  you  all, 
dear.  I  read  in  the  London  papers  of  the  awful  heat  in 
New  York.  Over  here  it  has  been  cool  and  rainy,  and 
I  guess  I  have  been  in  luck  being  here.  Of  course, 
you  got  my  two  letters  from  Denmark.  You  can't 
imagine  how  much  I  have  missed  hearing  from  you  these 
last  three  weeks,  but  I  know  it  is  all  my  own  fault.     I 


322  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

told  you  I  was  coming  right  home.  Well,  I  thought  I 
was.  Every  steamer  was  going  to  take  me.  I  have 
paid  for  not  going,  in  lonesomeness.  Well,  I  am  going 
off  now  to  engage  passage  on  the  St.  Louis,  and  if  I  catch 
her  I'll  be  with  you  three  days  after  you  get  this. 
Good-bye  until  then. 

London,  July  17,  1901. 

When  I  wrote  you  last  two  weeks  ago  to-day  I  think 
I  was  as  certain  as  I  was  that  I  would  have  my  next  meal 
that  the  following  Saturday  would  see  me  on-  board  the 
St.  Louis  on  the  last  lap  of  this  journey  around  the  world. 
But  you  know  that  saying  "  The  best  laid  plans  of  mice 
and  men  gang  aft  aglee."  In  that  letter  I  think  I  con- 
fided to  you  the  fact  that  I  had  discovered  that  I  had 
nerves  and  that  they  had  been  working  overtime  but  were 
all  right,  and  I  had  actually  engaged  passage  for 
Brooklyn. 

Well,  just  two  days  later  I  made  a  still  more  important 
discovery  about  myself.  That  was  that  I  had  a  liver. 
I  had  known  before  in  a  more  or  less  general  way  that 
some  people  did  have  livers,  but  it  had  never  occurred  to 
me  that  I  had  one,  and  the  shock  of  the  discovery  was 
such  that  I  took  to  my  bed.  You  know  I  never  could 
stand  surprises,  and  this  discovery  of  a  liver  in  my  in- 
wards was  very  surprising.  I  might  have  gone  on  and 
never  known  anything  about  it  and  lived  and  died  happy 
as  they  do  in  the  story  books,  had  it  not  been  for  the  fact 
that  my  liver  got  ambitious  to  be  the  biggest  thing  of 
its  kind  on  earth.  Well,  as  I  told  you,  I  was  so  surprised 
at  the  discovery  that  I  went  to  bed.  I  must  confess  that 
I  was  egotistical  enough  to  think  that  it  was  enlargement 
of  the  heart  and  not  of  the  liver  for  a  while,  but  when  I 
had  an  expert  go  over  me,  he  assured  me  it  was  just  plain 
liver  all  right  enough  and  he  insisted  on  my  staying  in 
bed.  There  really  isn't  any  use,  though,  of  going  into 
details  here.  I'll  tell  you  all  about  it  when  I  get  home. 
I  didn't  let  you  know  about  the  matter  before  because  I 
knew  that  it  was  nothing  serious  and  I  did  not  want  you 
to  worry.  I  got  up  yesterday  morning  and  came  down- 
Stairs  feeling  fine  as  a  fiddle.     Certainly  better  than  I 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  333 

have  felt  at  any  time  during  the  past  six  months,  when, 
as  I  have  told  you,  I  have  been  a  shade  off  with  nothing 
the  matter  that  I  could  define. 

While  I  am  up  and  about  and  feeling  as  fine  and 
healthy  as  a  young  colt,  my  treatment  is  not  done  yet. 
Fortunately  for  me,  Mr.  Laffan  was  here  when  I  made 
the  astounding  discovery.  I  was  going  to  sail  with  him, 
in  fact.  He  was  simply  splendid.  He  ordered  that  I 
should  have  everything  I  wanted  and  that  I  should  go  to 
the  Continent  as  soon  as  I  could  get  away. 

One  of  the  very  necessary  things  to  do  when  you  have 
a  liver  is  to  go  to  Carlsbad  and  drink  the  water  and  take 
the  baths.  That  was  about  the  first  thing  the  Doctor 
ordered,  and  by  the  time  that  you  get  this  letter  I  will  be 
there,  drinking  water  by  the  barrel,  I  suppose,  and  taking 
a  bath  every  fifteen  minutes.  The  treatment  there  is 
three  weeks,  and  you  become  like  a  sylph  in  form.  Then 
you  have  to  take  a  week  to  recuperate.  That  will  be  in 
Switzerland.  After  that  you  are  an  absolutely  new  man. 
I  don't  know  whether  you  are  labeled  "  Made  in  Ger- 
many "  or  not,  but  the  important  part  is  that  you  are  new 
and  you  never  have  a  recurrence  of  the  trouble,  so  when 
I  do  get  back  you'll  have  a  brand-new  husband. 

You  can't  tell  how  thankful  I  am  that  I  discovered 
the  liver  when  I  did.  If  it  had  been  a  day  later  I  would 
have  been  aboard  the  steamer  and  that  would  have  been 
awful.  If  I  had  come  back  from  Norway  in  time  to  take 
the  steamer  the  week  before  I  would  have  been  sick  in 
that  awful  hot  spell  in  New  York  and  I  don't  know  what 
would  have  happened. 

I  have  been  treated  like  a  prince  for  sure.  H.  R.  and 
his  family  have  done  everything  in  the  world  for  me,  but 
I'll  tell  you  all  about  that  when  I  get  home.  The  only 
thing  that  I  have  missed,  is  you  yourself.  I  couldn't 
help  longing  occasionally  that  you  were  with  me,  for  I 
was  so  homesick.  Now,  beginning  to-day  I  will  resume 
my  daily  letters  to  you.  I  have  been  saving  up  things  to 
tell  you  and  I  think  I've  got  at  least  a  year's  supply  on 
hand.  I  don't  dare  trust  any  more  to  my  memory,  and 
shall  tell  you  every  day  just  what  happens,  just  as  I  did  in 
China.       Please   don't   under   any   circumstances   worry 


324  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

about  me,  for  I  tell  you  truly  I  am  better  to-day  than  I 
have  been  in,  I  said  six  months,  I  really  think  I  am  better 
than  I  was  when  I  left  home. 

The  Carlsbad  trip  is  simply  to  make  it  impossible  for 
me  to  have  any  similar  trouble  again.  You  will  hear 
from  me  by  every  steamer.  As  I  don't  know  just  where 
I  will  stop  in  Carlsbad  you  had  better  write  me  to  the 
office  here  and  H.  R.  will  forward  the  letters.  I  will 
cable  you  direct  once  a  week,  so  that  you  will  know  that 
everything  is  all  right.  Everything  is  all  right,  except 
my  longing  to  get  home  and  be  with  you  all  again.  That 
won't  be  cured  until  I  get  there. 

Oh,  how  I  wish  I  could  be  with  you  all  this  minute. 
Of  course,  school  is  over,  and  the  children  are  with  you. 
I  hope  they  are  behaving,  and  not  worrying  you.  Bless 
their  little  hearts,  I  know  they  don't  mean  to  do  it ;  and 
C,  I  wonder  if  he  is  as  much  a  chip  of  the  old  block  as  he 
was  when  his  dad  went  away.  Well,  I'll  be  with  you  all 
mighty  soon  now,  and  will  know  by  personal  inspection. 

By  the  way,  there  is  one  lucky  thing — if  I  was  at 
home  and  up,  I  suppose  I  should  be  away  on  that  plagued 
strike,  so  I  wouldn't  be  with  you  anyway. 

London,  W.  C,  Thursday,  July  i8,  1900. 

I  am  simply  disgustingly  healthy  and  I  start  for  Carls- 
bad to-morrow  morning,  at  9  o'clock.  I  have  been  feel- 
ing so  fine  the  last  two  days,  that  yesterdav  I  had  a  long 
talk  with  the  Doctor,  and  tried  to  make  him  agree  to  let 
me  off  from  the  trip ;  I  didn't  feel  that  I  needed  it  and 
I  did  want  to  go  home.  But  he  was  an  Englishman  and 
of  course  was  obstinate,  and  I  couldn't  make  any  head- 
way with  him.  He  admitted  that  I  surprised  him  by 
being  so  healthy,  and  he  insisted  that  the  trip  wasn't 
necessary  for  the  present,  but  for  the  future.  Well,  under 
the  circumstances  I  couldn't  very  well  say  that  the  future 
could  take  care  of  itself,  and  so  we  ended  just  where  we 
began  and  I  will  take  the  train  in  the  morning. 

I  go  from  here  to  Dover,  then  to  Ostend  in  Brussels, 
then  to  Cologne,  then  up  the  Rhine  to  Frankfort-on-the- 
Main,  and  then  across  Southern  Germany  to  Bavaria,  get- 
ting there  Sunday  evening.     I'll  start  right  in  drinking 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  325 

water  and  will  get  through  the  job  as  quickly  as  possible. 
I  will  cable  you  from  there  the  day  you  ought  to  receive 
the  letter  I  wrote  you,  of  my  astounding  discovery  of  a 
liver,  so  you  will  know  things  are  booming.  Yesterday 
was  such  an  uneventful  day  that  there  isn't  anything  left 
to  talk  about  but  myself,  and  I'm  sure  I've  stuffed  you 
full  enough  in  these  two  letters  to  last  until  I  get  to 
Carlsbad.  I  probably  won't  have  time  to  write  you  a 
letter  on  the  road,  but  I  will  drop  you  a  fancy  postal  card 
or  two. 

Bayreuth,  Saturday. 
This  is  the  bridge  over  the  Rhine  at  Cologne,  and  I  had 
to  cross  it  to  get  into  the  city.  I  go  on  this  morning 
toward  Carlsbad,  stopping  to-night  at  Reudeheim,  and 
then  going  Sunday,  by  way  of  Frankfort.  Well  and 
happy. 

Sunday. 
I'm  at  Frankfort,  but  this  is  a  Cologne  postal.     I  go 
on  to  Carlsbad  at  2  o'clock.     I'm  feeling  bully. 

Carlsbad,  July  24,  1901. 
Surely  I  have  become  something  of  a  wanderer  on  the 
face  of  the  earth,  haven't  I?  Here  I  am  now,  in  Austria, 
prepared  to  tackle  that  barrel  of  water  a  day  that  I  told 
you  about  in  the  last  real  letter  I  wrote  you,  to  lose  my 
liver  and  to  do  all  other  things  necessary  to  make  me 
brand  new  from  top  to  bottom.  It  is  Wednesday,  and  I 
have  just  arrived.  I  ought  to  have  been  here  Alonday, 
but  the  trouble  was  that  the  railroad  from  Frankfort  here 
ran  through  the  town  of  Bayreuth.  Now,  Bayreuth  is 
one  of  the  famous  places  of  the  world  because  Richard 
Wagner  was  born  there,  and  every  two  years  all  the 
Wagner  cranks  who  can  afford  it  go  there  and  the  operas 
he  wrote  are  produced  in  a  theater  especially  built  for 
their  production  by  King  Ludwig  of  Bavaria,  who,  you 
will  remember,  was  known  as  the  Mad  King  and  jumped 
overboard  and  was  drowned  some  years  ago.  They  call 
this  affair  at  Bayreuth  a  Wagner  festival,  and  this  year 
it  began  on  Monday,  the  day  I  struck  Bayreuth.     It  was 


326  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

the  chance  of  a  lifetime  that  probably  never  would  come 
again,  and  I  felt  so  infernally  healthy  that  I  couldn't 
resist  the  temptation  and  I  stepped  off. 

I  had  luck  and  I  got  tickets  for  the  first  two  perform- 
ances and  promptly  joined  the  Wagner  cranks.  The 
theater  is  up  on  a  hill  and  commands  a  view  of  the  town. 
It  was  built  after  Wagner's  own  ideas  and  is  unique  in 
the  way  of  a  theater.  It  seats  about  1,400  people.  But 
it  is  not  the  theater  that  is  the  interesting  part  of  it — it  is 
the  whole  atmosphere  that  surrounds  the  place.  The 
opera  Monday  was  "  The  Flying  Dutchman."  It  was 
the  sixtieth  anniversary  of  the  writing  of  that  opera,  and 
that  was  the  reason  it  was  chosen  this  year  for  the  open- 
ing of  the  festival.  It  was  to  start  at  4  o'clock  in  the 
afternoon,  and  I  just  mingled  with  the  cranks  until  that 
time.  I  went  to  Wagner's  house  and  looked  through  it. 
I  visited  his  favorite  beer  garden  and  the  woods  he  used 
to  walk  in,  stared  at  pictures  of  him  that  were  to  be  seen 
in  every  window,  and  finally,  when  the  procession  started 
up  the  hill,  I  joined  the  procession.  It  was  made  up  of 
people  of  all  nationalities,  including  many  Americans. 

I  got  up  to  the  theater  at  a  little  before  4  o'clock.  At 
ten  minutes  to  four  six  heralds  with  brass  trumpets 
walked  from  entrance  to  entrance  of  the  theater,  and  blew 
the  first  bar  of  the  opera  music.  In  five  minutes  they 
blew  it  again.  At  the  second  blow  I  noticed  the  crowd 
all  scrambling  to  get  in,  and  I  scrambled  with  it  and 
found  my  place.  At  one  minute  of  four  the  trumpets 
sounded  again  and  then  every  door  was  closed.  Any- 
body who  hadn't  got  in  before  that  last  horn  missed  the 
opera.  As  nearly  as  I  could  see,  though,  there  wasn't  a 
vacant  seat  in  the  whole  place. 

Well,  about  a  minute  after  the  doors  were  closed  every 
blessed  light  in  the  place  went  out  and  there  was  total 
darkness.  Then  there  came  silence.  Not  a  soul  moved. 
Suddenly  the  overture  began.  The  orchestra  wasn't  in 
sight.  All  you  could  tell  was  that  the  music  was  coming 
from  somewhere  down  in  front,  and  such  an  orchestra 
I  never  had  heard  before  in  all  my  life.  It  was  simply 
perfect.  Well,  I  can't  describe  the  music.  The  dark- 
ness and  the  big  crowd  and  the  silence  all  got  you  into  the 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  327 

mood  to  listen,  and  the  music  took  hold  as  no  music  had 
ever  before  taken  hold  of  me.     It  was  simply  splendid. 

I  sat  two  and  one-half  mortal  hours  in  that  theater,  and 
just  listened  and  watched,  without  as  much  as  stirring. 
I  was  as  bad  as  any  of  the  cranks.  There  was  no  inter- 
mission between  the  acts.  I  didn't  want  any.  I  was 
content  to  listen.  The  opera  itself  was  all  in  German, 
and  of  course  I  didn't  understand  a  word  of  it.  But  that 
didn't  make  any  difference.  I  must  confess  that  after  it 
was  over  I  was  something  of  a  Wagner  crank  myself. 
Having  a  ticket  for  Tuesday's  performance  you  couldn't 
have  dragged  me  away  from  Bayreuth  without  seeing  it, 
and  I  stayed  over  Tuesday.  The  opera  was  Parsifal. 
This  is  supposed  to  be  one  of  the  greatest  of  the  Wagner 
operas,  and  it  has  never  been  produced  anywhere  but  in 
Bayreuth.  Wagner's  widow  has  a  copyright  on  it,  and 
won't  let  it  be  played  anywhere  else.  It  is  a  religious, 
or  you  might  say  sacrilegious,  piece.  My  experience 
was  the  same  as  the  day  before.  I  was  simply  spellbound 
by  the  thing  and  wasn't  ashamed  to  own  up  to  it. 

Well,  I  got  away  to-day  for  Carlsbad  and  here  I  am. 
It  took  two  days  to  see  Bayreuth,  but  I  think  they  were 
well  spent.  I  shall  begin  the  treatment  here  in  the  morn- 
ing. It  consists  simply  of  drinking  the  water,  eating 
plain  food,  going  to  bed  at  9  o'clock  and  getting  up  at  five 
in  the  morning,  and  then  walking  miles  and  miles  every 
day.  I  feel  so  well  that  I  am  really  almost  ashamed  to 
go  ahead  with  it,  but  I  suppose  it  is  the  only  thing  to  do 
if  I  want  to  keep  perfectly  well  in  the  future.  I  suppose 
you  will  get  my  letter  telling  you  of  my  astonishing  dis- 
covery about  my  liver  to-day,  and  in  the  morning  I  shall 
cable  you,  so  that  you  may  know  that  I  am  all  O.  K. 

As  I  have  just  landed  in  Carlsbad  I  can't  tell  you  any- 
thing about  the  place,  and  I'll  write  you  again  to-morrow, 
after  I  find  out  something  about  it.  Now,  please  don't 
under  any  circumstances  worry  about  me,  because  I  am 
all  right,  and  absolutely  the  only  thing  that  bothers  me  is 
the  time  it  takes  to  finish  up  this  water  business.  I  am 
so  anxious  to  get  home  and  be  with  you  all  again  that  I 
begrudge  every  minute  of  this  time,  but  there  is  no  way 
out  of  it.     Gee!  maybe  I  won't  enjoy  it  when  I  finally 


828  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

do  get  there.  In  the  meantime,  as  I  told  you  before,  I 
think  I  can  thank  my  lucky  stars  that  I  discovered  I  had 
a  liver  in  this  place  where  livers  can  be  mended,  rather 
than  at  home,  where  they  can't  be. 

Kiss  and  hug  the  little  ones  for  me,  and  tell  them  how 
anxious  pop  is  to  see  them. 

Carlsbad,  July  25,  1901. 

I  have  told  you  that  I  was  lonesome  in  Carlsbad.  One 
of  the  last  injunctions  I  got  when  I  left  London  was  to 
get  acquainted  with  folks,  get  into  the  fun  of  the  place, 
and  have  a  good  time.  Now  when  I'm  off  on  business, 
of  course  I  never  have  any  trouble  getting  acquainted 
with  folks,  but  when  it's  a  job  of  this  kind,  it's  all  quite 
a  different  matter.  Well,  I  got  lonesome  and  lonesomer 
in  this  yellow  town,  until  Saturday,  when  the  injunction 
occurred  to  me,  and  I  said,  "  Why,  certainly,  that's  easy, 
what's  the  use  of  being  lonesome ;  I'll  go  out  and  get 
acquainted."  So  I  started  out  to  the  spot  where  the  yel- 
low men  parade,  and  coming  there  I  looked  over  the 
bunch  and  selected  my  man.  He  looked  pretty  nearly 
as  I  felt,  but  he  looked  as  if  he  might  have  more  talk  in 
him,  so  I  slid  up  to  him  and  remarked,  "  It  would  be  a 
fine  day  if  it  wasn't  raining,  wouldn't  it?  "  Well,  I  can't 
tell  you  what  he  said,  but  it  sounded  like  a  page  out  of 
the  Russian  dictionary  and  at  the  same  time  he  grabbed 
his  watch  pocket.  Of  course  I  saw  right  away  that  I  had 
made  a  mistake,  and  I  backed  off  while  my  lonesome 
friend,  looking  very  much  disgusted,  resumed  his  walk. 

Probably  I  would  have  been  wise  if  I  had  stopped  there 
and  had  made  no  further  effort  to  get  acquainted,  but  I 
hated  to  give  up  so  easily,  so  I  waited  my  chance  and 
spotted  another  one  in  the  crowd.  I  made  my  way  over 
to  where  he  was  standing  in  the  crowd  and  putting  on 
my  best  smile,  I  said,  "  I  wonder  if  this  rain  is  going  to 
continue  ?  "  He  looked  wildly  around  and  then  blurted 
out  something  that  to  me  sounded  like  Norwegian,  but 
that  may  have  been  either  Swedish  or  Danish ;  at  the 
same  time  he  clutched  the  glass  of  hot  water,  that  he  held 
closer,  as  if  I  had  designs  on  it,  and  again  I  realized  that 
I  had  made  a  mistake,  and  again  hustled  off  with  mumbled 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  329 

apologies.  The  first  set-back  I  hadn't  minded  so  much, 
but  this  second  one  simply  made  me  more  determined, 
and  I  swore  a  mighty  swear,  that  I  would  get  acquainted. 
My  third  try  was  at  a  little  fellow ;  he  wasn't  quite  as 
yellow  as  the  others,  and  he  looked  more  cheerful. 
Moreover,  he  had  a  copy  of  the  Paris  Herald  in  his  hand. 
I  thought  to  myself,  "  Well,  I  can't  be  mistaken  here," 
and  with  a  light  heart  I  cantered  up  to  him  and  remarked, 
"  Good-afternoon."  He  gazed  at  me  blandly  and  then 
demanded,  "  Parlez-vous  Frangaise  ?  "  I  gasped  "  No," 
and  bolted  off  into  the  crowd,  running  plump  into  the 
arms  of  a  fat  girl.  I  suppose  that  I  meant  to  apologize, 
but  I  sputtered  "  Sprechen  Sie  Deutsch  ?  "  and  she  glared 
at  me  and  sputtered  back,  "  Aw  rats,  why  don't  ye's  look 
where  ye's  are  goin'."  That  was  too  much.  I  saw  that 
my  last  chance  to  get  acquainted  with  anybody  was  gone, 
and  that  there  was  nothing  left  but  to  take  to  the  woods, 
and  to  the  woods  I  took.  I  climbed  until  the  rain  stopped 
and  darkness  followed  day  and  the  moon  came  out  and 
spread  a  mellow  light.  Then  I  sauntered  back  to  my 
hotel  and  climbed  in  a  near  window,  while  the  crickets 
chirped  divinely  and  the  tree  toads  chanted  with  glee. 
Heart-rending,  wasn't  it  ?  But  wait,  the  worst  is  to 
come;  I'll  tell  it  to  you  to-morrow,  in  my  letter.  I  need 
only  add  here,  that  I  have  sworn  never  again  to  try  and 
get  acquainted  with  anybody  without  a  proper  introduc- 
tion. 

I  am  waiting  anxiously  for  a  letter  from  you ;  when 
I  get  one  I'll  stop  being  lonesome,  for  a  while  anyway. 
I'm  getting  on  splendidly  and  looking  forward  with  all 
my  senses  to  the  day  when  I  can  start  really  and  truly 
for  home. 

Carlsbad,  Austria,  July  26. 
I  am  about  winding  up  the  second  day  of  my  sentence 
to  Carlsbad  and  it's  boiling  waters,  and  I  feel  fine  as  a 
fiddle.  I  must  say  I  like  the  place  and  it  is  a  great  sport 
coming  here  to  lose  a  liver,  or  for  anything  else.  I  told 
you  yesterday  that  the  town  was  full  of  hotels ;  well  I 
find  it  also  full  of  music.  One  of  the  first  things  that 
struck  me  about  it  was  that  pretty  nearly  everything  was 


330  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

free.  For  instance,  when  I  walked  around  and  found  a 
concert  going  on  in  almost  every  corner,  I  always  saw  the 
sign,  "  Admission  Free."  Then,  at  the  springs,  where  I 
went  to  get  water  with  the  thirty-seven  thousand  other 
people  with  livers  that  they  wanted  to  get  rid  of,  there  was 
nobody  around  who  said  anything  about  money.  I 
passed  in  my  cup,  like  the  rest  of  the  livers,  and  the  water 
was  passed  out  regularly,  at  fifteen  minute  intervals. 

I  got  the  explanation  of  it  all  to-day,  when  the  tax 
collector  came  around  and  charged  me  fifteen  florins  for 
music  and  ten  florins  for  the  cure.  The  whole  business, 
I  learned,  is  owned  by  the  town  and  is  run  by  the  town, 
and  is  paid  for  by  the  people  who  come  here  to  take  the 
waters,  or  cure  as  it  is  called,  though  visitors  have  to  pay 
the  tax  whether  they  take  the  water  or  not.  It  is  with 
money  raised  in  this  fashion,  that  the  whole  town  of 
Carlsbad,  to  say  nothing  of  the  Springs,  is  supported. 
Her  streets  are  kept  clean,  her  police  are  paid,  the  schools 
are  run,  and  all  the  local  officials  get  their  money  from  the 
cure  tax.  The  natives  of  Carlsbad,  apparently,  don't 
pay  any  tax  at  all ;  it's  a  fine  thing  for  them,  isn't  it  ? 
The  plan  strikes  me  as  a  mighty  good  one,  for  the  people 
who  get  the  real  benefit  from  the  waters  pay  for  what 
they  get. 

This  afternoon  I  took  an  eight-  or  ten-mile  walk  in  the 
woods.  The  place  is  surrounded  by  woods,  and  they 
form  a  big  park.  Thousands  of  dollars  have  been  spent 
in  laying  walks  through  them,  and  these  walks  are  just 
as  fine  as  the  best  sidewalks  that  the  town  affords.  There 
are  miles  and  miles  of  them,  and  of  course  there  is  always 
a  crowd  everywhere.  Then  every  once  in  a  while  you 
run  across  a  band,  too,  and  you  can  lie  down  on  the  grass 
or  sit  on  one  of  the  benches  that  line  the  walks,  and  rest 
while  you  listen  to  the  music.  I  must  say,  so  far  as  I 
have  seen,  there  is  no  place  for  recuperating  invalids 
that  even  approaches  this.  Don't  you  think  I  was  in 
luck  to  be  so  handy  to  it  when  I  found  that  I  had  an 
ambitious  liver^  that  had  to  have  the  conceit  taken  out  of 
it  ?  I  certainly  do.  The  only  cloud  in  the  sky  is  that  I' 
haven't  you  here  to  help  me  enjoy  it. 

I  haven't  made  any  acquaintances  yet,  and  it's  lone- 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  331 

some ;  but  it  is  a  good  deal  of  fun  to  watch  the  people 
traveling  around  with  their  cups  tied  to  them  and  now 
and  then  stopping  at  a  spring  and  getting  a  glass  of  water 
that  comes  bubbling  up  at  a  temperature  of  165.  Oh, 
by  the  way,  did  I  tell  you  that  Julian  Ralph  had  just  left 
here?  You  know  he  has  been  working  in  London  for 
some  years.  During  the  early  part  of  the  South  African 
war,  he  was  a  correspondent  in  South  Africa  for  the 
Daily  Mail  of  London,  and  he  was  slightly  wounded 
there.  About  six  weeks  ago  he  was  taken  sick  in  Lon- 
don with  a  liver  and  he  was  sent  here.  He  finished  up 
his  treatment  here,  just  before  I  got  here,  and  now  he  has 
gone  off  to  the  Alps  to  recuperate.  He  got  rid  of  about 
25  pounds  while  he  was  here.  I  don't  know  whether 
it  was  all  liver  or  not.  I  had  myself  weighed  yesterday, 
and  tipped  the  scales  at  169  pounds  2  ounces.  You 
see  I  am  still  not  a  sylph,  but  that  is  a  good  deal  better 
than  190  pounds,  isn't  it?  I  think  that  probably  I'll  get 
down  to  150  while  I  am  here  and  that  will  be  about  the 
right  weight  for  my  height.  My !  won't  I  be  an  Adonis 
though?  I  suppose  I'll  have  to  have  all  my  clothes  taken 
in. 

I'm  awfully  lonesome  for  a  letter  from  you ;  it  has  been 
such  a  long  time  since  I  heard.  I'm  not  blaming  you, 
you  understand,  for  it  is  my  own  fault.  You  stopped 
writing  because  you  were  sure  I  was  coming  right  home ; 
and  so  was  I :  I  was  as  certain  of  it  as  I  was  that  I  was 
alive;  I  didn't  even  suspect  then  that  I  had  a  liver.  I'm 
looking  forward  to  a  letter  that  I  know  must  be  on  the 
way.  I  wish  the  children  would  write  to  me  too ;  if  they 
only  knew  how  much  it  would  take  away  the  loneliness 
of  this  exile,  I  know  that  they  would.  Please  don't  let  a 
moment's  worry  about  me  trouble  you,  for,  as  I  cabled 
you  yesterday,  I  am  actually  in  better  health  now  than 
I  have  been  at  any  time  for  a  year  past,  and  I  am  getting 
better  all  the  time.  I'll  be  so  healthy  by  the  time  I  leave 
here,  that  there  will  be  no  living  with  me. 

CARLSRAn,  July  27,  1901. 
Day  No.  3  has  passed,  and  I  am  still  feeling  so  disgust- 
ingly healthy  that  I  am  tempted  to  pack  up  my  duds,  tell 


332  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

the  Doctors  all  to  go  to and  start  Londonward,on  the 

way  home.  There  is  one  good  thing  about  it,  I  certainly 
am  losing  flesh.  On  Thursday  I  weighed  169  pounds, 
and  yesterday  I  had  dropped  to  167.  Two  pounds  in  a 
day  is  not  half  bad,  is  it?  Before  I  go  to  bed  to-night, 
ni  have  myself  weighed  again  and  see  if  I  have  dropped 
another  32  ounces.  If  I  have  I  guess  my  estimate  of 
150  pounds,  when  I  leave  here,  won't  be  far  out  of  the 
way.  I  wouldn't  mind  if  it  were  not  for  my  clothing. 
It  will  be  a  nuisance  to  have  to  have  that  all  altered,  won't 
it? 

This  is  Saturday  and  as  dull  as  dishwater.  How  I 
wish  that  you  were  here  to  drive  the  blues  away  and  cheer 
things  up  a  bit.  The  only  amusement  is  listening  to 
music,  and  that  palls  on  you,  and  watching  people  with 
livers.  You  don't  know  how  tired  I  get  looking  at  faces 
of  various  degrees  of  yellow.  One  thing  that  a  bad  liver 
does  to  a  person,  is  to  give  a  very  yellow  face ;  beside 
most  of  the  people  here,  I  am  in  the  very  pink  of  condi- 
tion ;  I'm  not  a  bit  yellow  and  my  eyes  are  clear.  Hun- 
dreds of  the  visitors  are  as  yellow  as  jaundice  and  the 
whites  of  their  eyes  even  are  the  color  of  sunflowers. 
One  hates  to  look  at  them. 

To-morrow  morning  I  have  another  interview  with  my 
funny  little  German  Doctor,  and  in  all  probability  he  will 
change  my  spring  to  a  stronger  one.  You  see  I'm  get- 
ting along  fast;  I'm  doing  exactly  as  he  says,  and  I'm  not 
going  to  delay  my  return  to  complete  health,  a  single 
day.  I'm  sleeping  a  great  deal  better  than  I  have  for  a 
year,  and  I'm  doing  more  walking;  there  is  another 
reason  why  I  wish  that  you  were  here ;  you  would  have 
to  walk  with  me,  and  before  we  got  through,  you  would 
be  doing  your  ten  miles  a  day  too. 

I  got  hold  of  the  Paris  edition  of  the  Herald,  to-day, 
and  found  in  it  the  first  news  that  I  had  had  since  I  left 
London.  The  most  interesting  thing  was  that  there  was 
trouble  with  the  Brooklyn  bridge,  and  that  seventeen 
strands  of  the  cable  had  broken.  I'm  glad  I'm  not  com- 
pelled to  travel  back  and  forth  over  it ;  it  would  be  a  case 
to  take  the  awfully  jammed  ferry  boats  or  walk,  and  one 
is  about  as  bad  as  the  other.     I  also  hear  that  Rear- 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  333 

Admiral  Schley  has  demanded  a  full  investigation  of  his 
conduct  at  the  battle  of  Santiago.  That's  a  big  victory 
for  The  Sun,  it  seems  to  me.  I  don't  suppose  these  things 
interest  you  much ;  they  interest  me  because  every  line  of 
American  news  interests  me;  I  have  been  without  it  for 
so  long. 

You  can't  imagine  how  good  I'm  getting ;  I  go  to  bed  at 
lo  o'clock,  regular  as  clockwork,  and  am  up  when  the 
first  strains  of  the  band  sounds  down  at  the  spring.  I 
wash,  shave  and  dress,  and  get  down  to  the  springs  at 
7  o'clock,  sharp,  and  every  ten  minutes,  for  the  next  three- 
quarters  of  an  hour,  I  drink  a  goblet  of  that  infernal  hot 
water.  Then  I  walk  an  hour  before  breakfast  and  for 
breakfast  I  eat  two  pieces  of  Zwieback  and  a  boiled  tgg 
and  drink  a  cup  of  tea;  that's  all  I  get  until  i  o'clock, 
when  I  have  my  dinner,  or  Zimmer,  as  it  is  called  in 
Austria.  At  7  o'clock  I  get  my  supper,  and  then  I  go 
to  my  room.  It's  all  as  regular  as  clockwork,  quite  as- 
tonishing for  me,  isn't  it?  I  hope  that  when  I  get  home 
I  will  be  able  to  be  as  regular  for  a  while  at  least.  If  I 
was  at  home  now,  it's  nine  chances  out  of  ten  that  I'd  be 
away  in  the  West  somewhere  on  one  of  the  strikes,  that  I 
read  are  going  on. 

Well,  good-bye  again,  for  20  hours.  In  my  letter  to- 
morrow, I'll  tell  you  what  the  doctor  says. 

Carlsbad,  July  28,  1901. 

Well,  I  saw  my  little  Dutch  Doctor  to-day,  and  I'm 
getting  along  "  bully."  He  didn't  change  the  water,  but 
he  did  my  bath ;  and  after  this  I  am  going  to  take  what  he 
calls  a  pine-needle  bath.  This  is  because  my  left  foot 
has  formed  a  habit  of  going  to  sleep  at  unseasonable 
hours.  He  told  me  three  or  four  pine-needle  baths  would 
fix  it  up  better  than  new.  Funny  as  he  is,  I  think  him  a 
very  good  doctor. 

It's  Sunday,  dear,  and  as  everywhere  else  on  the  Conti- 
ent,  in  Europe,  there  is  no  Sunday  to  speak  of ;  in  Carls- 
bad all  the  stores  are  open ;  the  streets  are  just  as  crowded 
and  people  are  going  about  apparently  doing  exactly  what 
they  do  every  other  day  in  the  week.  I  thought  there 
wasn't  much  Sunday  in  China^  but  I  think  there  is  really 


334  ORDERED    TO   CHINA 

less  here.  I  am  sitting  writing  in  my  room  in  the  Duke 
of  Edinburgh  Hotel,  and  from  my  window  I  can  hear 
the  music  of  two  brass  bands,  while  out  in  the  street  I 
can  see  people  sitting  drinking  beer. 

There  is  hardly  anything  to  tell  you  to-day.  The  hotel 
is  jammed  full  of  people,  all  of  them  with  livers  and 
most  of  them  carry  their  livers  in  their  faces;  a  thing 
that  thank  the  Lord  I  haven't  done.  It  makes  me  tired  to 
look  at  them,  I  just  had  a  look  at  myself  in  the  glass, 
and  I  can  tell  you  I  look  a  good  deal  more  like  a  man 
hunting  for  pleasure,  than  a  man  hunting  for  health, 
and,  honest  Injun,  I  think  that's  what  I  am.  If  you  were 
with  me  this  minute  I  couldn't  get  a  bit  of  sympathy  out 
of  you,  I  look  so  healthy ;  and  I  shouldn't  want  any 
sympathy  either,  I  feel  so  healthy.  The  water  and  the 
air  and  the  food  here  certainly  agree  with  me,  and  with 
the  regular  hours  it  seems  exactly  like  a  vacation.  If  I 
wasn't  so  lonesome  I'd  be  happy,  and  to-morrow  I'll  be 
over  a  part  of  that  for  a  while,  for  a  party  of  people  who 
were  at  Bayreuth,  where  the  operas  were,  that  I  told  you 
about,  are  coming  here  for  a  time  at  least,  and  there'll 
be  somebody  here  that  I  know,  but  the  whole  party 
couldn't  make  up  for  an  hour  or  so  of  you;  I'm  just  as 
homesick  for  you  as  I  can  be.  How  I  wish  I  could  have 
you  here,  if  only  for  a  few  days :  but  there,  I'm  always 
wishing  for  what  I  can't  have.  Thank  Heaven,  anyway, 
every  day  makes  the  parting  shorter  and  I'll  soon  be  on 
my  way  home  to  be  with  you  and  the  little  ones  again, 
this  time,  I  hope,  for  a  long  time.  In  the  mean  time,  I  am 
getting  health  and  strength,  and  that's  a  good  deal,  isn't 
it?  This  letter  to-day  is  a  short  one,  because  I  haven't 
yet  had  my  walk;  I  am  going  to  start  right  now,  on  a 
ten-mile  walk  through  the  Pine  woods,  and  while  my  legs 
are  working  I'll  busy  my  thoughts  with  home,  sweet 
home. 

Carlsbad,  July  30,  1901. 
I  told  you  in  my  letter  yesterday,  that  I  would  con- 
tinue the  tale  of  the  misfortunes  of  a  lonely  man.     Well, 
it  was  Sunday  morning;  I  went  down  to  the  Springs  to 
get  my  water  at  6:15  o'clock.     There  stood  my  Russian; 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  336 

he  was  talking  to  a  policeman  and  he  pointed  me  out, 
I  made  myself  scarce  in  the  crowd  and  stumbled  right 
into  my  Scandinavian.  I  dodged  him  only  to  come  face 
to  face  with  my  Frenchman,  who  wore  a  smile  of  exas- 
perating superciliousness.  I  staggered  away  from  him 
and,  horror  upon  horrors,  I  trod  upon  the  toes  of  the  fat 

girl,  who  spluttered,  "  Well,  of  all  the  impudent "  But 

why  continue?  Only  the  woods  were  left  again,  and 
again  up  into  them  I  climbed.  I  walked  and  I  walked  and 
I  walked.     Rods  turned  into  miles,  miles  into  leagues. 

On  and  on  I  went.  At  last  it  was  near  night ;  I  came 
out  on  a  place  called  Kaiser  Park ;  I  made  my  way  around 
that  and  struck  out  on  an  almost  deserted  road  for  the 
hotel.  By  and  by  I  came  to  a  bench ;  it  was  deserted ;  I 
was  tired ;  I  sat  down.  I  suppose  I  must  have  gone  to 
sleep.  How  long  I  slept  I  do  not  know,  but  at  last  I  woke 
up  and  started.  There  in  front  of  me,  in  the  middle  of  the 
road,  was  an  omnibus.  There  was  a  huge  white  umbrella 
over  the  driver,  and  on  this  umbrella  in  letters  over  a  foot 
long,  were  the  words  "  All  cars  transfer  to  Bloomingdale, 
59th  St.  and  3rd  Avenue."  I  rubbed  my  eyes ;  I  read 
again,  "  All  cars  transfer  to  Bloomingdale,  59th  St.  and 
3rd  Avenue."  I  noticed  that  the  omnibus  was  drawn 
by  the  same  crowbait  that  draws  the  Fifth  Avenue  stages. 
The  omnibus,  itself,  was  not  so  familiar.  I  looked  at  the 
umbrella  again.  There  were  the  words  still,  "  All  cars 
transfer  to  Bloomingdale,  59th  St.  and  3rd  Avenue." 
Like  a  flash  it  came  to  me  that  my  liver  was  all  a  dream. 
Then,  I  thought  of  China,  and  Japan  and  India,  and  I 
wondered  if  the  whole  business  had  not  been  a  dream. 
There  staring  at  me  were  the  words,  sure  enough,  "  All 
cars  transfer  to  Bloomingdale,  59th  St.  and  3rd  Avenue." 
I  could  remember  China ;  I  could  remember  Japan ;  I 
could  remember  India;  I  could  remember  London,  but 
bless  me  if  I  could  remember  crossing  the  Atlantic,  and 
yet  there  was  the  familiar  Fifth  Avenue  stage  sign,  "  All 
cars  transfer  to  Bloomingdale,  59th  St.  and  3rd  Avenue." 
It  began  to  dawn  on  me  that  something  had  happened; 
I  remembered  in  a  vague  sort  of  way  trying  to  get 
acquainted  with  somebody.  I  reached  out  on  either  side 
of  me  for  the  padded  walls  of  the  cell   I  thought  I  must 


336  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

be  in;  they  were  not  there.  I  looked  again,  and  again 
was  the  sign  staring  at  me,  "  All  cars  transfer  to  Bloom- 
ingdale,  59th  St.  and  3rd  Avenue."  Slowly  I  got  on  my 
feet ;  I  wandered  over  to  the  omnibus,  I  got  aboard,  I 
gave  a  dime  to  the  conductor,  I  murmured  "  Gi'  me  a 
transfer  to  Bloomingdale,  the  asylum,  not  the  store,"  and 
I  sank  into  a  corner  feeling  that  I  would  be  cared  for  at 
any  rate.  When  I  woke  up  it  was  in  front  of  Pupps 
Hotel,  and  then  I  knew  that  I  had  been  asleep,  neverthe- 
less, when  I  looked  on  the  front  of  the  omnibus  there  was 
the  umbrella  with  the  sign,  "  All  cars  transfer  to  Bloom- 
ingdale, 59th  St.  and  3rd  Avenue." 

How  that  umbrella  got  over  here  in  Austria,  is  some- 
thing I  can't  even  guess,  but  if  I  find  the  man  who  brought 
it,  I  am  going  to  lick  him,  wouldn't  you  ?  Well,  that  for 
the  present  is  the  end  of  trouble  for  a  lonely  man  at  Carls- 
bad. When  I  have  more  I'll  tell  it  to  you.  Now,  I'm 
going  to  take  my  pine-needle  bath  and  drink  some  more 
water. 

P.  S.  Oh !  I  forgot  to  tell  you  I'm  all  O.  K.  in  spite  of 
loneliness ;  please  remember  me  to  all  the  folks. 

Carlsbad,  July  31,  1901. 
This  is  a  morning  crowd  at  Carlsbad.     I'm  in  it. 

Carlsbad,  August  i,  1901. 

Yesterday  wound  up  my  first  week  at  Carlsbad,  and  as 
I  told  you  I  thought  I  would  be,  I  have  been  promoted  to 
new  springs.  I  saw  the  Doctor  again  yesterday  morn- 
ing, and  started  right  off  to  new  springs,  both  of  them 
cooler  than  the  Felsengerell,  in  which  I  started.  One  is 
the  Theresabrunn,  and  the  other  the  Marktbrunn.  I 
suppose  my  next  promotion  will  be  to  the  Spoudil,  itself, 
and  then  I'll  be  about  ready  to  start  off  somewhere  to 
recuperate  before  starting  for  home.  I  didn't  write  you 
a  letter  yesterday,  but  I  sent  you  a  postal  with  a  picture 
of  the  crowd  that  take  the  waters  in  it. 

I  wish  you  could  see  that  moving  crowd  of  "  livers  " 
as  it  walks  up  and  down  between  drinks.  It  numbers 
thousands  and  it  comes  from  all  parts  of  the  world. 
There  are  a  plenty  from  our  country.    I  send  you  a  copy 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  337 

of  a  paper  that  is  printed  here,  that  contains  the  names  of 
the  latest  arrivals  from  England  and  America.  You 
will  see  how  widespread  livers  are,  and  that  New  York 
and  Brooklyn   send  their  quota. 

When  one  is  under  treatment  here  he  has  to  take  the 
treatment  at  intervals  of  fifteen  minutes.  For  instance, 
I  have  to  get  up  at  6  o'clock  in  the  morning ;  I  go  down 
to  the  Springs,  arriving  there  at  7  o'clock ;  then,  I  go  to 
the  Theresabrunn  and  drink  one  glass  of  the  water ;  I  walk 
around  fifteen  minutes  with  the  crowd,  and  then  I  go 
back  and  at  7:15  I  drink  another  glass ;  then  I  walk  up  to 
the  Marktbrunn  and  at  7  :30  I  drink  a  glass  of  that,  walk 
around  for  another  fifteen  minutes,  and  at  7  45  go  back 
and  drink  another ;  then  with  five  glasses  of  hot  water  in 
my  inside,  I  have  to  walk  an  hour  before  I  get  my  break- 
fast. 

Well,  everybody  else  in  this  big  crowd  has  to  do  the 
same  thing,  so  you  can  imagine  the  scene  in  Carlsbad 
any  morning.  I  am  certain  that  the  treatment  here  is 
doing  me  a  lot  of  good  and  is  really  making  me  over; 
after  my  one  week  my  skin  is  clear  and  pink ;  there  isn't 
a  shade  of  yellow  in  it.  My  eyes  are  clear  and  bright 
instead  of  heavy  and  dull.  These  are  things  that  I  can 
see  myself.  The  doctor  says  that  my  liver  is  in  much 
better  shape ;  I  am  going  to  him  again  to-morrow,  just  to 
give  him  a  chance  to  make  another  examination,  he  says, 
but  /  say,  make  another  $2.50. 

Carlsbad  is  not  prolific  for  space  writing,  and  I'll  have 
to  close  this  letter  for  want  of  interesting  material.  God 
bless  you  all  and  see  us  soon  reunited. 

Carlsbad,  August  6,  1901. 
One  of  the  penalties  of  leaving  a  liver  in  the  town  of 
Carlsbad,  is  to  have  a  headache,  not  just  an  ordinary 
headache,  but  one  that  takes  the  top  of  your  head  off  and 
that  makes  you  feel  like  the  smallest  Austrian  coin,  a 
"heller."  It  takes  150  of  these  to  make  30  American 
cents,  so  you  can  tell  just  how  mean  one  feels  when  he 
is  possessed  of  it.  Well,  I've  had  it  ever  since  the  day 
that  I  wrote  you  last,  which,  if  I  remember  rightly,  was 
the  first  of  August.     I  haven't  felt  like  writing  or  doing 


338  ORDERED    TO    CHINA 

much  else,  but  I  have  sent  you  a  postal  card  every  day. 
To-day,  I'm  feeling  more  or  less  sprightly  again,  so  that 
I  take  the  opportunity  of  resuming  my  letters. 

The  headache,  as  I  told  you,  is  merely  a  part  of  the 
formula  of  having  a  liver,  and  there  is  absolutely  nothing 
to  worry  about  when  one  has  it.  The  funny  little  Dutch 
doctor  who  is  attending  me,  tells  me  it  is  caused  by  the 
carbonic  acid  in  the  water,  and  that  it  generally  lasts  a 
week  or  so ;  I  shall  probably  have  two  or  three  days  more 
of  it;  but  in  the  meantime  I  certainly  do  enjoy  this 
respite.  I  wanted  him  to  give  me  something  for  it,  but 
he  said  that  any  medicine  would  interfere  with  the  work 
of  the  waters,  and  he  couldn't  do  it.  Finally,  yesterday, 
he  said  it  would  be  a  good  thing  to  put  a  mustard  plaster 
on  the  back  of  my  neck ;  so  this  morning  when  I  went 
down  to  get  my  water,  I  stopped  at  a  drug  store  and 
bought  a  little  box  of  plasters.  I  want  to  testify  to  their 
value.  They  were  great.  I  came  back  to  the  hotel  and 
put  them  in  the  bureau  in  my  room ;  that  was  less  than 
two  hours  ago,  and  here  I  am  writing  letters.  No,  I 
didn't  open  the  box.  They  are  still  in  the  drawer,  and  I 
didn't  go  near  the  bureau,  which  is  across  the  room. 
They  worked  through  the  tin  box  and  the  space. 

Well,  this  is  the  thirteenth  day  in  Carlsbad ;  only  eight 
days  left,  and  then  a  week  more,  somewhere  in  the  moun- 
tains, and  I'm  off  for  home  I  hope.  Won't  that  be  fine? 
You  can't  imagine,  sweetheart,  how  the  time  is  dragging 
and  how  I  long  to  be  away.  Headache  and  all,  my  daily 
routine  here  has  been  the  same.  Up  at  six  in  the  morn- 
ing and  down  to  the  Theresabrunn  spring,  where  I  drink 
one  glass,  walk  fifteen  minutes,  and  come  back  and  drink 
another;  then  to  the  Marktbrunn  spring,  where  I  drink 
another,  walk  fifteen  minutes,  and  come  back  and  drink 
another.  Wait  one  hour  and  get  a  breakfast  of  coffee 
and  Zwieback,  wait  an  hour  and  take  a  pine  needle  bath ; 
wait  an  hour  and  get  dinner;  wait  an  hour  and  go  walk- 
ing in  the  woods ;  walk  two  hours  and  a  half,  and  drink  a 
cup  of  tea  and  eat  more  Zwieback ;  wait  two  hours  and 
eat  supper ;  walk  two  hours  and  go  to  bed,  drinking  more 
water  before  I  do  it.  A  sort  of  a  busy  day,  isn't  it?  con- 
sidering the  only  object  of  it  all  is  to  have  more  liver. 


ORDERED    TO    CHINA  339 

I  don't  know  yet  just  where  I  shall  go  when  I  leave 
here,  but  it  will  be  either  to  some  place  in  Switzerland, 
which  is  on  the  way  back  to  London,  or  to  the  Austrian 
Tyrol,  which  is  a  part  of  the  Alps,  in  Austria.  The 
doctor  says  that  he  will  tell  me  when  he  finds  out  exactly 
what  the  treatment  here  has  done  for  me.  I  don't  care 
much  where  I  go  just  so  it  is  over  with  quickly  and  I  can 
get  started  for  home.  I  am  watching  every  day  now 
for  a  letter  from  home ;  one  ought  to  have  reached  me 
before  this,  but  I  suppose  there  is  some  delay  in  the  mails. 
I  hope  that  you  wrote  as  soon  as  you  got  my  letter  telling 
about  this  liver  of  mine.  I  am  so  anxious  to  hear  from 
you  all  that  I  can  hardly  contain  myself.  I  haven't  had 
any  more  adventures,  such  as  I  wrote  you  about  in  my 
two  last  letters.  If  I  do  I'll  let  you  know  about  them. 
Maybe  it  is  because  I  haven't  tried  to  get  acquainted  any 
more. 

P.  S.  Remember  me  to  all  the  folks,  and  don't  let  any- 
body worry  about  me,  for  I'm  all  right. 

Carlsbad,  August  6,  1901. 

This  is  my  second  letter  to  you  to-day ;  since  I  wrote 
the  other  one,  I  have  received  your  letter  of  July  25th. 
To  say  that  I  was  astonished  at  the  contents  of 
your  letter  is  putting  it  very  mildly.  The  idea  that  dear 
little  G.  has  had  typhoid  fever  has  shocked  me  completely 
off  my  pins,  and  H.  just  escaping  being  burned  to  death, 
— I  think  I  have  a  right  to  go  back  to  my  headache,  as 
I  have  very  promptly  done.  Since  I  received  the  letter 
I  learned  that  the  office  cabled  H.  R.,  telling  him  that  G. 
had  typhoid.  This  was  only  two  days  after  I  discovered 
that  I  had  a  liver,  and  of  course  they  did  not  tell  me, 
particularly  as  the  cable  said  that  the  case  was  a  mild  one. 
After  that  H.  R.  got  a  cable  every  day,  telling  how  G. 
was. 

Since  I  have  learned  the  facts,  T  have  been  feeling  very 
pouty  about  their  not  telling  me,  but  of  course  it  was  for 
the  best,  and  was  it  not  kind  of  them  to  keep  posted  and 
be  ready  to  do  whatever  might  seem  best?  Sweetheart, 
I  do  thank  God  for  all  his  mercies;  I  do  thank  him  most 
heartily;  surely  he  has  blessed  us.     You  were  right  in 


340  ORDEREDTOCHINA 

assuming  that  my  illness  was  more  or  less  serious.  I 
thought  I  let  you  see  that  in  the  letters  I  wrote.  I'll  tell 
you  all  about  it  in  detail  when  I  get  home ;  but  as  I've 
been  telling  you  in  my  letters  from  here,  I'm  all  right 
now,  and  with  the  exception  of  the  headache  that  comes 
from  the  use  of  the  water,  I  haven't  a  pain  or  an  ache. 
You  will  surely  have  a  new  husband  when  I  get  home; 
if  you  haven't  then  all  the  doctors  that  I  have  seen  are 
liars.  They  have  all  held  up  their  right  hands,  solemnly, 
and  sworn  that  Carlsbad  would  make  me  a  new  man. 
Of  course  by  this  time  your  troubles  are  practically  over. 
I  certainly  hope  and  pray  that  they  are.  G.  of  course  is 
running  around  again,  H.'s  burns  are  all  right  again, 
and  C.  is  probably  contemplating  the  parlor  window  and 
measuring  the  distance  that  he  fell,  while  W.  is  advising 
him  not  to  fall  again.  Oh !  how  I  wish  I  was  there 
watching  it  all.     God  bless  and  care  for  you  all. 


CABLEGRAM. 


London,  August  14,  1901. 
Chamberlin  died  Carlsbad  yesterday.     Notify  friends. 

H.  R.  C. 


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